At a time when Gaza is preparing to receive the blessed Eid Al-Adha, the fourth and last group of pilgrims from the Strip arrived on Friday, the sixteenth of June, to Mecca to perform the Hajj, as the number of members of the Gaza Strip mission is more than 2,900 pilgrims and needy people who have the capabilities to provide travel fares and special tickets. Hajj due to the high prices, where an amount of more than four thousand dollars must be paid to obtain the opportunity for Hajj per person, which is a very, very high amount that only a small part of the population of the Gaza Strip can provide.

We go back to Gaza and start with the exciting controversy, starting with the high prices of the Hajj season for this year by about 700 dollars compared to last year, as this poses a major dilemma for the population, most of whom are poor, but this situation is considered partial and unique within the framework of a group of other serious challenges facing the residents of the Gaza Strip Their number is nearly two million citizens. Poverty, high prices, and the high cost of living are all factors that disturb their comfort and cause a negative impact on the Palestinian economy in the Strip, which is forced to create a state of balance with the neighboring economy based on trade exchange movements. Therefore, the conclusion of the pre-Eid al-Adha situation can be described as disastrous for the citizens of the Strip. Given that the war of high prices and high prices has already begun …

The movement appears to be thriving towards the markets and commercial centers in the Gaza Strip and the cities of the Strip as a whole, especially the main ones. However, this movement is nothing more than another attempt by the Gazan citizen to acquire the necessary necessities only in order to draw the smile of Eid on the faces of children, sons, and young girls whose families should provide them with a margin, albeit a simple one. It makes Eid an occasion for joy and happiness…

Many families go to the markets of the Strip and are forced to buy very little. Since Eid al-Adha comes 70 days after Eid al-Fitr, most families do not buy new clothes for Eid for their children, preferring to rely on what was bought in the previous Eid. Prices are high, merchants do not cooperate, and their treatment is not good, which increases the burden on the hidden families.

Despite monitoring by the responsible authorities, the prices of some items of holiday food, in addition to clothes, rise dramatically, which exhausts citizens.

The rise in prices and the high cost of living schedule do not correspond to any improvement in salaries that do not exist in the first place or the aid that ranges in the same place, where the citizens wonder: Are there salaries and an increase in them until prices are raised in this insane way, hoping that the siege of the Strip will end until conditions improve and prices return to normal. .

Regarding the reasons behind the high prices of Eid clothes, clothing merchants explain that there are many reasons, including; The high price of the dollar against the shekel and also the low price of the Turkish lira against the dollar, which caused an increase in the prices of clothes inside Turkey, from which Gaza imports many pieces of clothing, in addition to the effects and shadows of the Corona pandemic in the last period, as this affected the clothing industry in China, which was not produced as well. It was previously, as it ended the epidemic measures only at the end of last year, and therefore no goods were available from China, the leading manufacturer of clothing …

Among the reasons are also the government measures that impose customs and taxes on the seeds imported from abroad, in addition to attempts to support the national product and place it in a price list close to the international and Arab prices surrounding the Gaza Strip. Also, the Israeli blockade until this moment limits the ability of national factories to cover the needs of the local markets. The besieged sector suffers from the deterioration of the humanitarian, economic and living conditions as a result of the continuous and strict occupation blockade, and the sanctions imposed by the authority on the sector, which exacerbated poverty and unemployment and the persistence of the problem of power outages, which increases the suffering of various groups.

Despite the position of the Ministry of Economy in Gaza regarding the rise in prices and the state of popular discontent with them, and despite the Ministry of Consumer Protection’s continuous follow-up of the markets, especially in the days preceding the holidays, after complaints that come from citizens and their grumbling about the high prices, the general situation of prices cannot Satisfaction in the hearts of Gaza's poor citizens, mainly...

The many economic consequences due to the high prices in the Gaza Strip will inevitably and once again affect the citizens in the Gaza Strip and will greatly affect their well-being. It will also contribute continuously to affecting the social fabric in the Strip with impressive blows through which the citizens of the Gaza Strip continue to be classified into well-off, poor, very poor, and destitute. It cannot inspire luxury or even be described as a decent living. The economic and living gaps are huge and require efforts and many years until we find a thread of happiness that brings back to the Gaza Strip a very small part of its luster.

American Robert Powers was convicted of committing the most deadly attack on Jews in the history of the United States in 2018 by targeting a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and he faces the possibility of the death penalty.

The extraordinary trial has now entered a new phase during which it will be decided whether Powers will be sentenced to death or life in prison.

Fifty-year-old Robert Powers was accused of killing 11 people in October 2018 at the "Tree of Life" synagogue in Pittsburgh, in the northeastern United States.

Federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania said the jury deliberated for five hours to reach this verdict.

Powers was found "guilty" of the 63 charges against him.

In addition to deeming the accused guilty, the bet in this two-stage trial focuses on the death penalty that may be issued by the US federal judiciary.

The white truck driver initially pleaded not guilty before his lawyers offered to plead guilty in exchange for a guarantee that he would not be sentenced to death, but the US Department of Justice refused.

On October 27, 2018, Powers stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh armed with three handguns and a semi-automatic assault rifle. He opened fire shouting "All Jews must die" and killed 11 people, including a 97-year-old woman, during Saturday prayers in a historic Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh, in the attack that resulted in the largest number of victims against Jews in the United States.

Prior to that, Powers had posted racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant messages on a far-right social network.

The then US President, Republican Donald Trump, called for the imposition of the death penalty on Robert Powers, which was followed by the Ministry of Justice and confirmed after the term of Democratic President Joe Biden began on January 20, 2021.

But candidate Biden pledged in 2020 to abolish the death penalty at the national level, so this trial revived the controversy over this penalty, which is still applied in a number of US states.

In early 2019, the federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh said he would seek the death penalty for Robert Powers, citing his "no remorse" and "hatred and contempt" for Jews.

And his lawyer, Judy Clark, admitted that her client was indeed the man who shot the Jews. "There is no point in looking for meaning in an act of insanity," she said, trying to save Powers' life rather than asserting his innocence.

The trial comes against the backdrop of escalating racist and anti-Semitic acts in the United States, which have reached their highest level in 30 years, according to FBI figures published by The Washington Post in April.

The American organization to combat anti-Semitism, the Anti-Defamation League, said that in 2021, the country witnessed a record number of 2,717 anti-Semitic acts of assault, verbal attacks, and material damage, an increase of 34 percent over a year.

The same organization counted 3,697 anti-Semitic acts in 2022, an increase of 36 percent in one year and unprecedented since 1979, according to the Washington Post.

The United States has the largest number of Jews in the world, after Israel.

And the Pew Research Center reported that the number of adult Jews in the United States reached about 5.8 million in 2020, in addition to another 2.8 million adults whose parents are Jewish.

The Israeli occupation forces launched, at dawn and Saturday morning, a campaign of raids in several areas of the West Bank.

According to Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, a young man arrived with an injury in his right hand, and his condition was described as slight, after he was shot by the occupation forces.

Large forces stormed several neighborhoods in the city of Jenin and the outskirts of its camp, amid clashes with resistance groups that forced the occupation forces to withdraw, without any arrests being reported.

In Nablus, the young Yassin al-Qatanani, a resident of the popular housing neighborhood in Askar, east of the city, was arrested after storming his family's home, searching it thoroughly and tampering with its contents.

The Red Crescent reported that its crews dealt with the injury of a young man after he was run over by a military vehicle in the old Askar camp, and 3 injuries of gas suffocation.

The occupation forces stormed several houses in the town of Beita, as well as in Beit Furik, which led to the outbreak of confrontations. A young man was injured by a gas bomb in the head, and his condition was described as moderate and stable.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken denied any agreement between the United States and Iran regarding Tehran's nuclear program, stressing that press reports that spoke of such an agreement were "inaccurate."

"With regard to Iran, some of the reports we've seen about an agreement on nuclear issues or about detainees are simply inaccurate and incorrect," Blinken said in response to a question during a press conference.

Several media outlets recently published reports that confirmed that Washington and Tehran are about to conclude an interim agreement to replace the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, which has become null and void since the United States withdrew from it in 2018.
Iran also denied this information.

This comes in light of moving talks between the Westerners and the Iranians on the nuclear issue.

Diplomatic sources said that a high-ranking Iranian diplomatic official discussed, on Monday in Abu Dhabi, with representatives of France, Britain and Germany, strategic issues, including the Iranian nuclear program.

Tehran also confirmed on Monday that it is holding indirect talks with the United States, mediated by the Sultanate of Oman.

Blinken renewed the American position on Friday in terms of that the United States is "determined that Iran not obtain a nuclear weapon" and that to achieve this, "all options remain on the table."

"We still believe that diplomacy is the most effective way to achieve this, but there is no agreement, and reports to the contrary are inaccurate," he said.

He added that "there was no agreement" on the release of American citizens in Iran or the exchange of detainees.

At least three Iranian Americans are being held in Iran, including businessman Siamak Namazi, who was arrested in October 2015 and sentenced to ten years in prison for espionage.

Israeli special forces detained a young Palestinian from Balata refugee camp in the city of Lydda on Friday, alleging that he planned to carry out an attack. 

The detained man was identified as Muhammad Nasr Sawalmeh. 

His family rejected the reports in Israeli media that he intended to carry out an attack, saying that he was visiting relatives in the city.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his country's relations with the United Arab Emirates on Friday while meeting with the head of the oil-rich country, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in St. Petersburg.

"The UAE is a very good partner," Putin said in televised remarks at the beginning of the meeting, which was held on the sidelines of an economic summit in Russia's second-largest city.

Putin thanked Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed for the UAE's contribution to the exchange of prisoners and prisoners between Russia, Ukraine, Russia and the United States.

For his part, the Emirati president said he supports "de-escalation" and "political solutions" to the Ukrainian conflict.

He added that he discussed with Putin the "strategic partnership" between their two countries, according to a statement published by the official UAE news agency (WAM).

Russia and the UAE cooperate closely through the OPEC+ oil alliance.

Dubai is also one of the few global capitals to maintain direct flights to Moscow after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, allowing the UAE to benefit from a large influx of Russian tourists.

Mohammed bin Zayed is the most prominent foreign leader participating in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an annual event that brings together officials and companies from around the world.

Ramallah – Several Palestinians were injured by live and rubber-coated bullets in protests and confrontations with Israeli forces across the occupied West Bank on Friday. 

Local sources added that several others suffered from tear gas inhalation in the village of Beit Dajan, east of Nablus, and Beita, in the south.

In the town of Beit Ummar, near Hebron, a young man and a photojournalist Ihab Al-Alami were wounded by live ammunition, while others were hit by rubber-coated bullets. Dozens of others suffered from suffocation from tear gas.

Eyewitnesses said that clashes broke out in Beit Ummar after the Israeli army raid the town, wounding the two men in the thighs with live ammunition. The two men were evacuated to hospital.

The occupying state believes that by escalating its attacks on citizens in the West Bank, storming cities and towns, and killing young men in cold blood, in addition to the acts of vandalism, attacks, and cutting down of trees and burning homes and cars and other things, it can achieve its goals in continuing its occupation of the Palestinian land. He made the citizens raise the white flag and recognize the occupation, especially for those who remain among the Palestinian citizens on their lands after, according to its plans, a large proportion of them are expelled out of the country, either voluntarily through the crimes it commits against them, or by force, waiting for the opportunity to implement that.

This is not new, as many officials in the Israeli right-wing, racist, and extremist government declare day and night that the West Bank is Jewish land, that the Palestinians must leave it, and that the Palestinian people is a people that was invented only decades ago and that before that there was no Palestinian people.

But Israel will be disappointed and its plans will fail in light of the Palestinian’s insistence on steadfastness on his land and his willingness to make more sacrifices and confront the occupation crimes with bare chests, and that the forced displacement that took place in 1948 as well as in 1967 will not be repeated, no matter how great the sacrifices and whatever the tyranny of the occupation and its herds. settlers.

Contrary to what the occupation believes, its crimes and violations by it and the settlers' flocks, including storming the city of Nablus last night and shooting at citizens, which led to the death of a young man, the injury of dozens, and the demolition of a prisoner's house, will lead to an escalation of violence and counter-violence in the region, and the occupying state will not be able to During that, achieving any of its objectives, for violence generates violence, and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
This is what is happening in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem. Whenever the occupying state escalates its violations and crimes, the Palestinian people will respond to that, which will lead to an escalation of violence in the West Bank, and our people will not be complacent or acquiesce in the occupation.
The easiest way for the occupying state to prevent violence and counter-violence is to recognize the inalienable national rights of our people to return, self-determination, and the establishment of an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and thus the region will witness complete calm, and without that, the occupying state bears responsibility not only for the unbridled escalation that it practices. Against our people, but what will happen in the future in terms of the outbreak of confrontations and perhaps wars that may threaten security and peace in the region and the world, and then our people will not be the ones who will pay the price alone, but the occupying side will also pay the price.
And the wise people on the occupation side, if there are wise people and we doubt that, they must remedy matters before it is too late, as continuing the escalation will never serve the occupying state.

In October of the year 1995, Senator Robert Dole presented the draft "Law Implementing the Transfer of the Jerusalem Embassy", and after one month it was approved and issued as a "public law". The “General Law” is considered binding for implementation, and the drafting of its preamble was a major shift in official policy, as it referred to the city of “Jerusalem” as being completely under the sovereignty of the “State of Israel” and considered its “capital” since 1950. And that in the period 1948-1967 the city was “divided Where Jordan supervised the eastern part of it, "and prevented the Jews from accessing the holy places." He goes on to say that this situation "changed after the Six-Day War and the unification of Jerusalem," when "Israel guaranteed freedom of access for people of religion to their holy places." The law adopted Senate Resolutions 106 and 113, which stipulated that "the city of Jerusalem remains undivided, considering it the capital" and "unified." The "law" ignored the status quo and international law regarding the city of Jerusalem, and instead referred to the "Declaration of Principles of Self-Government" and the subsequent signing of the "Gaza and Jericho" agreement and the "transitional period".

In order to implement it, the “law” gave the Secretary of State 30 days to present to Congress a plan with time stages for “constructing and moving the embassy.” It gave the US President until May 31, 1999 to move the embassy, ​​while giving him the president the possibility of asking Congress to postpone the implementation of the “law” for six months only if it was “security.” The United States is threatened by its implementation. In its formulation, the "law" went further when it approved the reduction of the annual diplomatic mission's budget by half and the transfer of the other half to the budget for building and transferring the embassy. .

From its establishment in 1844 to 1995, the United States Consulate in Jerusalem was symbolically and politically important to the United States of America and its values. During this period, with its many stops, the United States refused to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and established its embassy in Tel Aviv, and kept its consulate in Jerusalem to serve the Palestinians. And it went further by not allowing its official vehicles to fly the American flag in Jerusalem, and its insistence on putting the name “Jerusalem”, and not “Israel”, in the birthplace of the American passport holder born in Jerusalem. And it practiced its parallel foreign policy when it put pressure on any country that tried to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

It is clear that the radical change in US policy towards the Palestinians and their rights has taken on different and accelerating dimensions since the mid-nineties, specifically by Congress and its active members, as Congress is still discussing and adopting many bills and laws that restrict any potential endeavors of the US administration that would reach an acceptable political settlement. In this context, Congress passed the "Taylor Force" law in 2018 regarding "stopping US economic aid to the Palestinian Authority if it does not stop aid to the families of martyrs and prisoners." In the same year, Congress passed the “Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act-ATCA” in the wake of federal lawsuits against the Palestine Liberation Organization. and Justice for Victims of Terrorism - (PSJVTA) to target the Palestine Liberation Organization directly and cut off any official Palestinian representation in the United States, and pave the way for the prosecution of the organization and the Palestinian Authority in American courts.

It is clear that the main objective of these unjust laws towards us is to blackmail and subjugate the national decision, which was not accepted before, nor later. What is required of us remains a greater effort to win advocates from the American legislative level for our just cause.

The point at which the agendas of the Israeli political forces meet in their struggle and agreement is “intimidation.” Those in power intimidate the public against the opposition, as if it opens Israel’s doors to danger, and the opposition fears that the government is taking policies that endanger existence. As long as there is a government in Israel that fears for itself to fall, and as long as there is an opposition that seeks to win.

So; There is much talk these days that the Hebrew state is facing three fronts simultaneously, and only the current government is able to confront it, especially when Benjamin Netanyahu is its president. The only way out is to get rid of it.

These days, a fourth front has appeared in Israel, but it differs from the other fronts, namely: the Palestinian in Gaza and its extensions in the West Bank, and the Lebanese represented by “Hezbollah” standing with its “accurate” missiles on the direct line of contact between it and Lebanon, and the Syrian, which flares up at times and fades at other times. However, the danger remains. The talk of the government and the opposition about the three fronts has become routine in a way that the public has become accustomed to, and it is almost believable that the Israeli army, regardless of the government that leads it, can confront them and win in them, and the matter is not devoid of citations of past wars, and what Israel considers the victories that it celebrates until now, not to mention the Its massive destructive capabilities in Gaza and the southern suburbs and its geographical extension - the northern front - was not a slip of the tongue when the Minister of Defense threatened Lebanon to return it to the Stone Age if it committed an act that threatened the security of Israel.

However, it appeared in Israel, in the context of its celebrations of the victory of “June (67) 67” on the three fronts, to warn that what was in the year 1967 is no longer guaranteed to be repeated, as many matters and considerations have changed, and the current new is not a literal reproduction of the old.

The three fronts, with their current reality, characteristics and climates, and if it is possible for the political and military leaders to reassure the public of the ability to confront them at once, the one who reassures himself is not reassured. Whatever the capabilities of the Israeli army in confrontation, many opinion makers in Israel remind the army leaders that although it is winning its battles according to its estimates and standards, it has not yet decided one of them. The Palestinian front has not raised the white flag despite the enormity of its losses, and the Lebanese front has not Stop playing with the public's nerves, by talking about the hundreds of thousands of precision missiles ready to be launched when the decision is made.

Examining the seriousness of this type of threat is the prerogative of political leaders, and the information available to them and the assessments they reach. However, the Israeli leaders' repetition of that does not negate the fear that prevails in the hearts of their public, especially where there are adjacent settlements, as soon as a single missile is launched from In southern Lebanon, a large-scale spontaneous exodus begins, as well as on the Gaza border and beyond... which makes the three fronts, and their traditional names, a source of fear and anxiety, and lack of confidence in the Israeli army's decisive capabilities.

As for the fourth front, which is completely different from the traditional fronts, it started from within Israel as a small vine that was nurtured in order to nurture another body, and if its development and enlargement carries a dangerous repercussion for the entire Hebrew state, that is when the number of organized crime deaths in the Arab sector reached one hundred and two. This is double what it reached during the same period last year. What made this tumor, which was kept silent about, more likely to grow, and its disastrous effects on the Jewish state uncontainable, not in terms of image, reputation, and pretense of democracy, but in terms of public security; Because the two million Arab Palestinians live in Israel, each one of whom feels that the rampant crime is not the work of local gangs, but of the work of the state and its agencies, in which they live, hold passports and are called Israeli Arabs.

The Hebrew state, and especially its current government headed by Netanyahu, could not deny its responsibility for it, albeit in an indirect way, when an internal debate erupts about Netanyahu's intention to introduce the "Shin Bet" apparatus to resolve this dilemma, and many respond to him that whoever will assign him to solve it is mainly involved in the phenomenon, so this is an admission Indirect responsibility, as well as an acknowledgment that the Shin Bet, who knows what a Palestinian is whispering in the ear of his fiancée, certainly knows who killed hundreds of Palestinians during the era of organized crime, knows their hideouts, and knows the sources of their arming and protection.

The Shin Bet, which is the state's general security apparatus, either considers the two million Palestinians enemies who deserve what is done to them, or for professional reasons, it will not engage in work that would harm its affiliates and those in its orbit, and in either case... a disaster.

The Fourth Front counts two million Palestinians who do not carry weapons, to direct them to the state in which they live, but rather to bear arms against them, claiming the lives of their children, and filling their hearts with fear that each one of them will be the next number. Can Israel, the deep, “democratic” and civilized state, avoid the repercussions of this front on it? The Palestinians talk about an escalation on their part in the confrontation, some of them suggest handing over the keys to Knesset membership to its people, and some of them call for the heads of local councils to submit their resignations and close the doors of their municipalities, and other things that might happen. After the next meal of the dead, it reaches the level of total civil disobedience, which committees, promises and pacification pills will not solve.

Is Israel aware of the significance of what it did?

Do you realize the size of the rebound on it?

I'm afraid to say... Even if I wake up, and try, it might be too late.
In agreement with the "Middle East"

French President Emmanuel Macron will receive Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Paris on Friday, in an effort to push the de facto ruler of the oil-rich kingdom to provide greater support to Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion and to find a solution to the presidential crisis in Lebanon.

The visit of the 37-year-old crown prince highlights the good relationship between Paris and Riyadh, and comes less than a year after his previous visit to the Elysee Palace, which angered human rights activists over the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 at his country's consulate in Istanbul.

And the French presidency announced that the talks would start at 11:15 GMT and would focus on bilateral relations as well as on "challenges of regional stability." The two men discuss "major international issues, including the war in Ukraine and its repercussions for the rest of the world."

Saudi Arabia distances itself to some extent in the Ukrainian file, and has called for an end to the war.

Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended part of the Arab League summit hosted by the Kingdom in Jeddah, in his first visit to the Middle East since the start of the Russian invasion of his country. At that time, Macron placed a French government plane in the service of Zelensky, which took him to Jeddah and then to Japan to participate in the G7 summit.

Riyadh had voted in favor of Security Council resolutions condemning the Russian invasion and Moscow's annexation of regions in eastern Ukraine, but at the same time it continued to coordinate closely with Russia on oil policies. It brokered a prisoner exchange between Kiev and Moscow.

Macron is publicly seeking to persuade non-aligned countries such as China and India, as well as Saudi Arabia, to pressure Moscow to end its war on Ukraine.

And the French president believed that Zelensky's visit to Jeddah allowed "obtaining very clear support from Saudi Arabia and other major powers in the region."

While in France, bin Salman will participate in the "For a New Global Financial Pact" summit that Macron is organizing in Paris on June 22-23.

The French President will discuss with his guest the preparations for this summit aimed at "collecting and focusing private and public funding where the world and people need it most to fight poverty, lead the necessary climate change and protect biodiversity," according to the French side.

The crown prince owns a luxurious home near Versailles in the Parisian region, which was designed by a relative of Khashoggi in the style of French royal palaces.

On the other hand, it is expected that the French president will ask the crown prince to use Saudi Arabia’s influence in Lebanon to break the political stalemate that led to the parliament’s repeated failure to elect a new president for the republic, the last of which was on Wednesday, amid an intensifying political division between Hezbollah and its opponents and threatening to prolong the presidential vacancy. , on the impact of an economic collapse that the World Bank ranked among the worst in the world since 1850.

And the French President appointed former Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as a “special envoy to Lebanon” to try to help find a way out of the political impasse. The veteran politician is expected to visit Beirut soon.

Researcher Denny Bouchard, advisor for Middle East affairs at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), notes that Riyadh may "play a role to mitigate Hezbollah's position, through Iran, to reach a compromise" regarding the presidency in Lebanon. "The issue is whether the reconciliation of Saudi Arabia and Iran can contribute to calming the political arena in Lebanon," he added.

Last March, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced the resumption of their diplomatic relations in a surprising agreement concluded under the auspices of China, which raised hopes of resolving several regional files.

The previous visit of the Crown Prince to Paris sparked much criticism in France by human rights organizations and left-wing opponents, who accused Macron of sacrificing human rights in favor of "pragmatism" regarding the rise in energy prices.

A CIA report concluded that the crown prince "authorized" the killing of Khashoggi, but Riyadh denies this.

Despite the social and economic reforms implemented by Prince Mohammed bin Salman in his country, he is being criticized for a crackdown on activists and opponents, even from within the ruling family.

Khashoggi's murder damaged his image as a reformer on the international stage.
Bin Salman will also participate next Monday in an official reception organized by the Kingdom on the occasion of Riyadh's official candidacy to host Expo 2030, an issue in which Riyadh wants to obtain French support.

Russia has signed an agreement with the Jerusalem municipality to a consular branch of its embassy to Israel in the occupied city. 

The confidential agreement was signed in Jerusalem in the presence of Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, Russian Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov, and the special envoy of the Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Makarov, according to the Hebrew news site Ynet. 

Jerusalem municipality said that the branch of the Russian embassy will be equipped to provide full consular services to Russian citizens in and around Jerusalem.

Ynet also added that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs sponsored the agreement and assisted in the negotiations. The final technical details will be ironed out within the next two months. 

The site indicated that the decision to open the consulate came as part of an agreement to resolve a real estate dispute between the Jerusalem Municipality and Russia over a 100-square-meter Russian-owned parking complex.

Israel's police commissioner Kobi Shabtai and the head of the Shin Bet Ronen Bar are looking to prevent the involvement of the security service in tackling the spiralling homicide rate among the Palestinian citizens of Israel, Haaretz reported. 

According to the Israeli newspaper, the two sides established a direct channel of communication between them, bypassing the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who wants the Shin Bet to intervene.

Several sources told the newspaper that Shabtai and Bar met following the killing of five Palestinians last week in Yafa an-Naseriyye in a bid to present a unified position to the security establishment. 

While Shabtai is not eager for the Shin Bet to involved in tackling the crime rings that are dominating the Palestinian community in Israel, he made it clear in closed discussions that he is interested in acquiring the technological capabilities of the Shin Bet for the police. 

Bar concurred, and said that his position was supported by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara

Security sources said that this is not the first time that Shabtai and Bar have established direct channels of communication and defied Ben-Gvir's positions.

CNN accused the Israeli army of failing to prevent the attack last February by Israeli settlers on occupied West Bank town of Hawara in an investigation broadcasted on Thursday.

In an hours-long rampage, settlers set vehicles and houses ablaze, causing widespread damage to property and livestock, as well as injuring several and even killing one Palestinian. 

According to the investigation, the Israeli military did not attempt to prevent the rioting, nor stop it once it had already began. 

It also pointed to a widespread incitement campaign from parties within Israel's government. An Israeli member of parliament for Itamar Ben-Gvir's extremist Jewish Power party, Limor Son Har-Melech, was a member of one of the social media groups that spread the calls for revenge.

One Israeli soldier who spoke to the American network said that dozens of soldiers were present at the scene, along with the Shin Bet forces and others, and that they were aware of the threat, but no one attempted to suppress it. 

Corroborating the account of Palestinian witnesses, the soldier added that they stood by while hundreds of settlers attacked the town.

Another soldier also told CNN: "The acts of violence and setting fire to Palestinian property could have been avoided if the forces present in the area had used force against the settlers and prevented them from entering the town of Hawara in the first place."

He said that their "biggest failure" was the failure to provide safe passage for fire trucks, which were attacked by the settlers.

Many Palestinians from the town said that they were shot at with tear and stun grenades when they tried to defend their homes. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressed his concern about the deteriorating security situation in the occupied West Bank in a meeting with his Israeli counterpart on Thursday.

The meeting with Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and other senior security officials took place in the U.S. embassy to Belgium in Brussels. 

Austin stressed the need to increase security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to quell tensions, and reportedly suggested that this be done through a U.S. security coordinator.

According to the Hebrew news site Walla, the two sides also discussed the issue of Iran.

Israeli and Turkish sources have been in conversation over setting up a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

According to the Hebrew website Ynet, Israeli hopes to hold the meeting in the coming weeks, though no concrete data has been set. 

This comes after Netanyahu congratulated Erdogan on his reelection last month. The Turkish president also called Netanyahu to extend his congratulations when he returned to power in November 2022. 

While Ynet reported that this meeting would only be the second meeting between Netanyahu and Erdogan in 15 years, it noted that Erdogan wishes to establish warmer ties with Israel. 

Four vehicles were set on fire in a suspected arson attack on Thursday night in a parking lot in Nof Hagalil area, a mixed Palestinian-Jewish city that sprawled out of Nazareth. 

According to the Israeli news site Ynet, firefighters managed to contain the fires. The police have opened an investigation into the circumstances of the incident, and is being treated as suspected arson. 

Jerusalem municipality approved a project to build the largest university campus in Israel for ultra-Orthodox women, after the ministries for higher education and settlements lent their support to the project.

According to the municipality, this project will extend the university campus of Jerusalem College of Technology, Machon Lev by an area of 13 dunams of the historic land of Lifta and Deir Yassin and will cost an estimated $120 million. 

Extremist Orthodox Jewish religious associations, from both inside and outside the country, have already donated some $70 million for the project. 

According to the occupation municipality, an “innovative academic space” will be built there, which will include five huge buildings for the College of Engineering, Life Sciences, Health and Administration, a conference building and a dormitory tower for female students. 

Excavation work at the site is expected to begin next week.

At least 16 people, including a civilian, were killed in bombings carried out by Turkish drones on several points in northern Syria, most of which belonged to the Syrian Democratic Forces and local groups affiliated with them, according to what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights counted on Thursday.

The shelling, which has been escalating since the beginning of the week, particularly affected the areas of Tal Rifaat and Manbij in Aleppo governorate, which are under the influence of the Kurdish forces, and which Ankara has repeatedly signaled its intention to launch a military attack towards.

According to the Observatory, the dead are distributed among four members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, whose backbone are Kurdish fighters, as a result of targeting their military vehicle on a road in Al-Hasakah Governorate (northeast).

Six other members of the Manbij Military Council, which includes local fighters working under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces, were killed by shelling throughout the Manbij countryside. Four of them died, according to the Observatory, while they were working to treat two children who were also wounded by Turkish artillery shelling.

Also among the dead were five members of the regime forces, as a Turkish march bombed their point in Tal Rifaat.

A civilian working for the Kurdish Autonomous Administration was also killed in Manbij.

For its part, the Turkish Ministry of Defense announced in a tweet on Thursday morning that its soldiers "continue to destroy the terrorists' dens" in Manbij and Tal Rifaat, noting that "16 terrorists have been neutralized," a designation it gives to Kurdish fighters in Syria.

The director of the Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP, Thursday, about "a significant escalation in the bombing by Turkish marches since the beginning of the week on the areas of Kurdish influence, which reached its peak on Wednesday," with the high death toll.

Last summer, Turkey intensified its bombardment by drones of targets in the areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, including points of the regime forces, which caused dozens of deaths.

The increase in the bombing rate at that time came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed at a summit with his Russian and Iranian counterparts on July 19 to obtain a green light to proceed with a military attack that he repeatedly threatened to launch against the areas of Manbij and Tal Rifaat.

The Kurdish units formed a spearhead against the Islamic State in Syria. However, Ankara, which previously launched three attacks in Syria, classifies it as a "terrorist" organization and considers it an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against it on its soil for decades.

Ankara controls a wide border strip in Syria, 120 kilometers long. Erdogan has repeatedly announced that he seeks to establish a so-called "safe zone" 30 kilometers deep.

Under the scorching sun in eastern Lebanon, Syrian refugee Ibrahim al-Karbo is busy with his children peeling garlic cloves to provide for a living, while he has lost hope of returning to his country despite the increasing campaign against refugees in Lebanon, the criticism of the host authorities, and the decline in international aid.

"My son told me that his hand had turned blue from the garlic...and I told him if it turned red, continue working. We want to eat bread," Karbou says, as the smell of garlic wafts through the camp in the town of Saadnayel in the Bekaa Valley.

Al-Karbo, 48, works with five of his six children, all of whom are under 12 years old, to separate garlic cloves from each other by squeezing them hard and then peeling them, which sometimes makes their little hands swell.

Work provides the family with about twenty dollars a week, while the aid they receive from the United Nations is only sufficient to cover basic needs, says Karbo.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in difficult conditions, especially since the start of the economic collapse that the country has been witnessing since the fall of 2019.

The economic crisis has increased the hostile rhetoric towards refugees who receive aid from international organizations, at a time when more than eighty percent of the Lebanese are below the poverty line.

After campaigns of arrest and deportation of refugees carried out by the security services during the current year, under the pretext of not obtaining the necessary legal documents, the caretaker government recently obstructed a program to distribute cash aid in dollars to refugees from the United Nations.

According to the authorities, Lebanon hosts more than two million Syrian refugees, while the number registered with the United Nations does not exceed 800,000.

The Lebanese authorities are exerting pressure on the international community and its organizations, calling for the return of the refugees to their country, after the battles stopped in large areas in Syria that have come under the control of the government forces.

"Supporting the future of Syria and the region" is the focus of an international donors' conference to be held by the European Union in Brussels, in light of an unprecedented funding shortage in response to the Syrian crisis inside and outside the country.

Karbou, who has a thick white beard that makes him look older, expresses his fear of returning to his hometown in light of the chaos and security concerns.

He says, "I wish one of the Lebanese would see the state of my house in Raqqa (...) Otherwise, why would I stay in a tent and not in my house? Why should my children not be educated? What compels us to this bitter life?"

And he adds, "I would rather die here in front of my children...than leave them," indicating fear for his fate in the event of his deportation to Syria, amid accusations by human rights organizations that the authorities have arrested a number of returnees from Lebanon.

About seven years ago, the man fled his city, where he worked in the field of construction, after the Islamic State took control of it and made it its most prominent stronghold in Syria until it was defeated in 2016 by the Syrian Democratic Forces, whose backbone is the Kurdish fighters and supported by the international coalition led by Washington.

Although the dream of return haunts many, many refugees today find themselves trapped between poor living conditions in Lebanon and the inability to return, after they lost their homes as a result of the battles and their livelihoods, in addition to the lack of services and basic infrastructure. A large number of young people also fear that they will be forced to join the compulsory military service in Syria.

The Syrian war, which has caused, since its outbreak in 2011, the death of more than half a million people and destroyed the economy and its capabilities, has prompted more than 5.5 million people to flee the country, while an almost equal number has been displaced within it.

Sadness and despair appear on the face of Souad, Karbo's sister, when she talks about her loss of hope in living a normal life. After fleeing years ago from the rule of the Islamic State, she lost her 12-year-old son this year in an agricultural tractor accident during the potato harvesting season.

"I feel that all doors are closed to us. My house in Syria was bombed. If I return, where do I live? On the street? A tent is better," she told AFP, adding, "I feel that it has become impossible to live a decent life."

While her five other children dropped out of school in order to work, she lamented, "fear accompanies me wherever I go (...) I despair of life. I am almost alive, my heart is dead, but I live for my children."

In a nearby camp in the town of Saadnayel, Ghufran al-Jassem (30 years old) expresses her concern about the future of her four children in Lebanon, after she refused to send them to school because she was unable to pay the transportation costs.

The mother, who fled with her family from Idlib Governorate in northwestern Syria, tells that two of her children suffer from heart failure.

And one of them, at the age of seven, needs a heart transplant, in an expensive operation that she cannot afford at all.

"I see my children dying in front of my eyes," she says, with tears in her eyes, in light of the fact that no one is sponsoring the treatment of her two sick children.

Like many refugees who complain about the financial and psychological pressure they suffer from in forgotten tents, Al-Jassem says, "We cannot return to Syria because my husband is required for reserve (in the army)."

And you ask, "How will I secure my children's sustenance" at that time?

The active institutions in the affairs of prisoners announced today, Thursday, that the administrative prisoners will study, during the coming hours, some of the responses they received from the Israeli prison administration regarding their demands. However, their current decision is to start an open hunger strike, starting next Sunday.

This came during a press conference held by the prisoners’ institutions and the national and Islamic forces in Ramallah, in the presence of Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Qadri Abu Bakr, the head of the Prisoners’ and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs Authority, Qaddoura Fares, the head of the Prisoners’ Club, and the head of the Higher Authority for the Follow-up of Prisoners’ and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs, Amin. Showman.

Abu Bakr said, "We await, during the next few hours, the decisive decision from the administrative prisoners regarding their open-ended hunger strike, which is scheduled for the eighteenth of this month."

He pointed out that the administrative prisoners demand that the administrative detention not be extended more than once or twice, in light of the fact that the Israeli military judiciary extends this detention several times in a row, as some prisoners have extended their administrative detention to 18 times in a row.

Abu Bakr added that the number of administrative prisoners is 1,083, which has doubled from what it was two years ago, indicating that the occupation courts issue daily rulings of administrative detention.

He pointed out that the so-called Israeli cabinet, the Cabinet, raised the issue of giving the extremist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, the power to issue administrative detention orders, which are restricted to military officers, which threatens to greatly multiply the number if this proposition is implemented. .

Abu Bakr explained that the meeting held by representatives of administrative and convict prisoners with the occupation prison administration yesterday raised several issues, including the issue of administrative detention, the sick and the elderly, and the prisoner Walid Daqqa. Age and female prisoners, and the ban on making phone calls to the prisoner Daqqa with his family was lifted.

In turn, Fares said that the rapid rise in administrative detention is an indication that after a year the number of administrative prisoners will be equal to the number of convicted prisoners, and this is unprecedented in history.

He pointed out that in light of the extremist Israeli government, and the state of anxiety that the occupying state is experiencing from an explosion of conditions in all parts of Palestine, it is taking proactive measures to legitimize the policy of administrative detention, which is rejected by all international norms.

Fares continued: "The prisoners found that this measure must be addressed by going on a hunger strike, and they want to send a message that if the occupation authorities want to break the weapon of the open strike by killing the martyr Khader Adnan, this weapon the prisoners will continue to resort to in order to defend their rights." their dignity and themselves.

And he added, "With regard to the administrative prisoners, some understandings took place during the past hours regarding the Ramla prison hospital, and a session will be held tomorrow in order to defuse the tension that began in the prisons, in light of the fact that the sick prisoners wanted to go on an open hunger strike, but the emergency committee The Supreme Court intervened and opened a dialogue and formed a state of pressure, and this resulted in allowing sick prisoners to make phone calls to their families so far.

With regard to the prisoner Walid Daqqa, Fares pointed out that the request for his early release will be considered next Sunday, which will be considered by what is known as the “life imprisonment committee”, which usually rejects the request, especially since there has been a remedial amendment in the occupation law that prohibits the prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment From his release if his health condition reached the point of danger, however, there are efforts made by Egypt and Jordan to release Daqqa.

For his part, Abu Youssef said, "In the event that the administrative prisoners go on an open hunger strike, support activities will be organized in all regions to support them and show solidarity with them and their rights, and their file will be activated before international institutions, especially the International Criminal Court, which is reluctant to move the files submitted to it." regarding the Palestinian issue.

He called for broad popular participation in order to put pressure on the Israeli occupation to stop the crime of administrative detention, and to reject the occupation's policies that attempt to blackmail prisoners and their families with its racist decisions and laws.

For his part, Shoman stressed the need to move on various legal and diplomatic levels for the issue of prisoners, in light of this extremist government that practices all kinds of oppression and abuse against our people, especially the prisoners.

He stressed the importance of our people shouldering their responsibility in supporting the captive movement, by standing by their just cause.

The number of administrative detainees is 1,083, including three female prisoners and 19 children, out of a total of about 5,000 prisoners held in 23 prisons and detention and investigation centers.

Musa Abu Mazrouq, a member of the political bureau of the "Hamas" movement, warned against turning the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque into a daily routine in preparation for dividing it temporally and spatially, stressing that this calls for continued calls to make the journey and the bondage and retreat there during the first ten days of Dhul-Hijjah, including the revival of the Great Dawn Campaign. Tomorrow, Friday, to confront the plans of the occupation and herds of settlers.

Abu Marzouk indicated that the occupation and its settlers are making unremitting efforts to impose more field incidents in Al-Aqsa Mosque and occupied Jerusalem, including the occupation's targeting of Palestinian national and Islamic symbols, and their continued expulsion from Al-Aqsa Mosque.

He noted that this concentrated Israeli targeting of Al-Aqsa Mosque calls for action from the Arab and Islamic nation, at the official, popular, partisan and mass levels, saying: “What is happening is a blatant assault on the holiest of sanctities of the entire nation, and requires more restraining positions from it, and support for the Jerusalemites and those stationed within it.” With all capabilities and capabilities.

Abu Marzouk expressed his rejection of what the occupation is doing in terms of ending the construction work for the dome of the Judaizing Jewel of Israel Synagogue, which is located only hundreds of meters from Al-Aqsa Mosque, because of the serious dangers it poses to the future of its Arab and Islamic identity.

He also condemned the occupation's removal of the golden dome of the Ebad Al-Rahman Mosque in the town of Beit Safafa, in response to the settlers' complaints, as it resembles the Dome of the Rock, in addition to the danger of the occupation targeting schools in occupied Jerusalem, and the families of education in them.

He pointed out that the attacks and crimes taking place in occupied Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque coincide with the occupation forces’ storming of the city of Nablus and the town of “Ya’bad” in Jenin, and the resulting martyrdom and injuries among our Palestinian people.

Abu Mazrouq affirmed that our people continued to confront the occupation forces in all areas of the West Bank, through increasing cases of clashes with them, to put an end to the implementation of more aggressive policies of demolishing the homes of the families of the martyrs, as crimes of collective punishment, and as evidence of the great influence of the resistance on the occupation.

Today, Thursday, a large Palestinian woman buried the body of the martyr Khalil Anis (20 years old), in the city of Nablus, to his final resting place.

The funeral procession started in front of Rafidia Hospital, with the participation of a number of representatives of official and popular events, towards the Martyrs' Roundabout in the city center, before the body of the martyr Anis was transferred to Ain Beit al-Maa camp, where a final farewell look was given to him at his family's home.

The participants performed the funeral prayer for the martyr Anis, then his burial body was buried in the camp cemetery.

The martyr Anis succumbed to his injury by the live bullets of the occupation in the Al-Ras area during its storming of the city of Nablus at dawn today.

The Supreme Fatwa Council in Palestine affirmed the fatwa issued by it regarding the prohibition of participation or candidacy in the elections of the occupation municipality in Jerusalem, justifying this as a clear and explicit violation of Sharia and the national consensus rejecting this participation, as the municipality is the first arm of the occupation authorities in implementing settlement and Judaization projects in the city, and narrowing ways Living and housing for the citizens.

During its session today, Thursday, headed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories, Chairman of the Supreme Fatwa Council, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the Council warned against Israeli plans to submit a draft law for the temporal and spatial division of Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to which the Al-Qibli Mosque area will be allocated to Muslims, and the area that starts from the courtyard of the Dome of the Rock to The northernmost of the Al-Aqsa squares for the Jews, and it constitutes about 70% of its area.

He said: The attempts of the occupation authorities to implement this step will cause massive anger, and will drag the entire region into a religious war whose results cannot be expected, calling on everyone who can reach the occupied city of Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque to travel to them in order to stand up to the plans of the aggressive Israeli occupation authorities. And its aggressions through which it violates the place of our Prophet, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him.

The council added that these projects and incursions are nothing but a continuation of the Judaization series that targets Jerusalem and its blessed mosque, to create a new reality on the ground, stressing the rejection of these planned and planned violations by the occupation authorities and their police, and that the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque was, is and will remain Islamic.

The Council warned of the policy of escalating restrictions on Palestinian prisoners, and of the murders that occur within the Palestinian community in the 48 territories.

The official spokesman for the presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said that the occupation government insists on dragging the region into escalation and a cycle of violence through its continuous crimes against our Palestinian people, the latest of which was the storming of the city of Nablus, the martyrdom of a young man, the bombing of a citizen's house, and the injury of dozens.

Abu Rudeineh added, in a press statement to him, that the policy of collective punishment practiced by Israel, whether by demolishing homes, killing citizens, besieging Jenin, Nablus, and other Palestinian cities, or the unacceptable Israeli measures in Jerusalem, are war crimes according to international law, and Israel must be punished for it. And take serious policies to stop it before it's too late.

He stressed that the continuation of these Israeli crimes against our people, our land, and our sanctities, makes the region sink into a spiral of violence, and creates a state of chaos, which requires the international community to act immediately to stop them, provide protection for our people, and hold those responsible accountable and bring them to justice.

The presidential spokesman held the occupation government responsible for the dangerous and accelerating events on the ground that crossed all red lines, calling on the US administration to break its silence and oblige Israel to stop its daily crimes and violations against our people, and to implement the resolutions of international legitimacy and signed agreements.

Abu Rudeineh stressed that the crimes of the occupation and the policy of collective punishment will not undermine the resolve of our people, and that it will remain steadfast on its land and defend it until its hopes for liberation and the establishment of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital are fulfilled.

The Hebrew channel Reshet Kan reported, on Thursday morning, that it had been decided to postpone the meeting of the Negev Forum, which was scheduled to be held at the end of this month in Morocco.

According to the channel, the postponement was decided due to Eid al-Adha, which will fall at the end of this month.

She indicated that it was postponed to next month.

This forum is known as the "Negev Forum" because its first summit was held last year for the first time in the Negev, southern occupied Palestine.

The Hebrew newspaper Haaretz recently quoted Israeli sources as saying that the foreign ministers of Israel, the United States, and several Arab countries, including Egypt and the UAE, will participate in the meeting hosted by Morocco.

According to the same sources at the time, the meeting was scheduled to take place early in the beginning of the year, but it was postponed due to security tensions in the Palestinian territories.

The meeting was held for the first time in March of last year in Sde Boker, in the Negev, at the initiative of the former Israeli Foreign Minister at the time, Yair Lapid, and it was decided at that time to hold it once a year in a different country.

According to the newspaper, one of the reasons for delaying its contract is the dispute between the United States and Morocco over its venue, after the latter demanded that it be held in Western Sahara, but Washington opposed and demanded that it be held in a politically non-controversial region.

In recent months, Israel, along with the United States, has sought to expand the circle of participants, and to add Muslim-majority African countries that do not currently maintain diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, at a time when Arab countries participating in the forum demanded that he change his name so that his identity would not be identified so that he would be clearly Israeli.

First, it is necessary to understand that there is no symmetry in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict between Israel and Palestine. Israel is the occupier. Palestine is occupied. Israel is strong and Palestine is weak. Israel acts unilaterally and does whatever it wants in complete disregard of international law. Palestine is unable to do anything against Israel because Israel enjoys almost complete immunity in the international community. In the victim struggle between the two sides, the winner is Palestine. I am writing this column by accepting the adage that we should not blame the victim. I don't blame the victim, but I also don't absolve the victim of their responsibility to change their situation.

Let's start with the easy part. elections. The vast majority of Palestinians want elections for a new leadership. The last elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (Parliament) were held in 2006. The last elections for a Palestinian president were held in 2005. President Abbas can be the best president in the world, but no president should be in office for long. He certainly should not remain in office for a long time without a clear mandate from the people. As most Palestinians explain to me, the path to the reunification of Palestine, between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, passes through elections. There is an understanding, perhaps even a commitment, that whoever wins those elections is the winner. The Palestinians want an end to the internal division and they want new elected leaders. So, take to the streets and let your voices be heard throughout Palestine. Peace and awe inspire the masses who took to the streets with one slogan: elections!

The second call from me is more complicated and difficult. In the decades that have brought thousands of Israelis and Palestinians together for serious and in-depth discussions and negotiations, it is clear that the two sides relay their messages on different waves. Israelis talk about peace and recognition. They also talk about ending the conflict. Palestinians talk about ending the occupation, freedom, justice and independence. In the recent past, many Palestinian youth also spoke about equality. Many Israelis believe that negotiation and reaching agreements is the best way to reach their goal of peace. Many Palestinians simply want Israel out of their lives and end the occupation. The reality on the ground is that the occupation is becoming more entrenched, new settlements are being built, and old settlements are constantly expanding. The road infrastructure in the West Bank is changing dramatically and rapidly in a way that prevents the survival of a Palestinian state. This has always been the goal of the settlement movement. They may have already achieved this goal, and if not, it will happen soon.

Achieving their goals of achieving justice, independence and equality. They depended for many years on the Arab world. This did not happen. Our message is their hope that the international community will force Israel to end the Israeli occupation. Then the Soviet Union disappeared and the non-aligned countries had nothing but strength to pass empty declarations in the UN General Assembly. Then came the peace process, Madrid, the multilateral talks, Oslo, the bilateral negotiations, the agreements signed - but the house of cards collapsed. The Palestinians received huge sums of money from the United States and the European Union, and many countries provided donor aid, but in retrospect, it enabled Israel to continue a more comfortable occupation and gave the international community the sense that it was in fact helping to end the war. occupation and lead Palestine to freedom. But there was no real pressure on Israel to withdraw or even to stop building settlements. In addition, the Palestinian government has become increasingly corrupt - this is what the Palestinians themselves say.

A month after Sadat's historic visit, the vast majority of Israelis were ready to give up every grain of sand from the Sinai for the sake of peace. Many sandstorms have blown across the Sinai since then, and the Israeli-Egyptian peace is a far cry from the vision of peace that existed in the 1980s, but no Israeli even thinks of taking back the Sinai and giving up peace. The most important lesson from that past experience for the Palestinians must be that the address to speak to is in the neighborhood, in Israel, for the Israeli people. The international community will not come to the rescue - neither the United States, nor the European Union, nor Russia, nor China, nor the United Nations, nor the Arab countries. Yes, it is very likely that Israel will face new pressures as a result of its criminal behavior against the Palestinian people. But this pressure may take many years before it leads to a change in politics and public views in Israel. Yes, Israel has become an apartheid-like state, but before the international community develops an effective political current against Israel, it will be a very long time and the suffering of the Palestinians will certainly increase beyond anything that can be tolerated.

I will not tell the Palestinian people and their leaders what to do and what to say. I know what those Israelis who are genuinely interested in peace and an end to the occupation want and what they would like to hear from them. From time to time I have heard some Palestinians say without fear that, yes, we understand that the Jewish people are "bound to this land." I have heard some Palestinians make clear statements without any if, what, or but - the Holocaust was the greatest crime against humanity ever committed, and we understand the suffering of the Jewish people and their need for real security. I even heard some Palestinians criticizing the Palestinian curricula for teaching hatred against Israel and the Jews, and they called for textbooks to be reformed! This does not mean changing the Palestinian narrative, which is largely based on their suffering at the hands of Israel. But, they say, the curricula should also teach the Palestinian people's desire to live in peace as neighbors of Israel. If the vast majority of Palestinians believe and express these things, I think the Israeli response to them will be very strong and meaningful for our common future here.

Perhaps the next generation of Palestinian leaders, those we know and those we don't, can take some dramatic steps that will have a "Sadat effect" on the Israeli psyche and public opinion. Faisal al-Husayni believed that when he visited the Museum of Ghetto Fighters in Kibbutz Lohamai HaGetaut, there would be a moment of the "Sadat effect". It didn't happen. Rabin and Arafat's handshake was very strong for the Israeli public, but the majority of Israelis still had major reservations about Arafat's true intent - many of his messages were covered in double talk. Clarity of intentions and consequent actions is what is required. I know it is very difficult for occupiers to stand up and find the moral courage and fortitude to take such measures, but I am really afraid that without something along these lines our situation will be much worse than it already is.

We should not get tired of repeating that, in the midst of everyone's preoccupation with the current Israeli government's plan to weaken the judiciary, and to dismantle what is known as checks and balances between the three branches of government, leading to near-absolute control of the executive authority over the other two branches, this government took a step described as, Even from an Israeli point of view, it is dramatic and would indicate Israel's current direction with regard to the file of occupation in the 1967 territories and the Palestinian cause in general.

The intent, as the author indicated in previous articles, is the approval of the Knesset General Assembly in late March, in the second and third readings, of an amendment stipulating the abolition of parts of the “Disengagement Law” of 2005, which allows Israeli settlers to be present in areas in the northern West Bank that have been It was evacuated 18 years ago, within the framework of that plan, which, at the time, included the evacuation of Gush Katif settlements in the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank.

This abolition was agreed upon through coalition agreements, and the direct aim of it was to basically legalize the status of religious school students in the outpost "Homesh", which was evacuated in 2005. This school was established within the framework of the settlers' determination to brandish a "metaphorical world" in Apparently, this indicates what they consider the futility of dismantling the settlements in the lands of 1967, so this approved legal amendment came to make it a realistic, non-temporary existence.

Over the short period since this amendment, it has more and more strengthened the assessment that the farthest goal is for the current government to drive a final nail into the coffin of what is known as the "two-state solution", by declaring that the dismantling of any settlement in the occupied territories, as it was in accordance with For the disengagement plan, never again.

This was confirmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview he gave to Fox News a few days ago, when he was asked to comment on a statement by the US State Department that considered the issue of the "Homesh" outpost as a violation of commitments made by Israel in exchange for the administration of former President George Bush. He said: "This is tantamount to endorsing the ethnic cleansing of the Jews in their historical homeland." In 2016, Netanyahu described the possibility of evacuating Jewish settlers from the lands occupied since 1967 as "ethnic cleansing"!

Regarding the course of the disengagement plan, it was noted that, as a result of it, the Israeli right’s tendency towards appropriating the human rights discourse was strengthened in order to achieve several goals, most notably: ending the monopoly of any left-wing party on the issue of human rights in Israel; Improving the image of the occupying state. Right-wing organizations began resorting to claiming that forcibly evicting Jewish settlers from their homes is contrary to the human rights discourse. In recent years, opponents of the two-state solution have used human rights rhetoric against the evacuation of Jewish settlers from a specific area in order to establish a homogeneous Palestinian state on it.

In parallel with listing these facts, which we can consider new in the current period, there is a need to point out that Israel has been using settlements in the West Bank since the 1967 occupation to achieve the goal of curbing the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is a goal that stood behind all the settlement projects that were discussed, and not all of them went beyond the goal of dismembering the public space in the West Bank specifically, to make such a state as separate enclaves, with self-rule with limited powers and main resources, especially land and water.

In a new report by a human rights organization, an accurate description of the role distribution in this regard between the occupying state and the settlers was stated as follows: The state is the one who initiates, plans, and steals Palestinian land and undertakes construction and settlement tasks, and the settlers are taking several steps forward, in what appears to be contrary to the official plan and several laws. . Soon the state forgives and reconciles retroactively, and initiates new plans, and the settlers in turn steal more Palestinian land... And so on and so forth.

The Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs revealed the arrest certificates of young men who were subjected to beatings and abuse by the Israeli occupation forces during the arrest and investigation process.

After her visit, the commission's lawyer, Heba Igbaria, met the prisoner Khalil Muhammad Abu Ghazaleh (16 years old) from the town of Al-Tur, in the district of Jerusalem, where he said that he was arrested from his home at around five in the morning, after a number of police and intelligence men arrived and stormed his room while he was sleeping from his bed, and took him out. They left him directly from the house and did not allow him to change his clothes, then they took him to the interrogation rooms and kept him in the corridor for two hours, kneeling on his knees with his face against the wall and forbidden to move, then they brought him in for interrogation. He returned to complete the investigation, and the prisoner stayed in Al-Mascobiyeh for 7 days, and then he was transferred to Al-Damoon Prison, “the Cubs Section,” where he is still there.

Ighbariya also met the prisoner, Ibrahim Sultan Al-Zumar (15 years), from the Askar camp in the district of Nablus governorate, and the prisoner said that the occupation forces arrested him from inside a supermarket at midnight, and a large number of soldiers entered and arrested him, then they beat him upon arrest while he was handcuffed to the back. He was blindfolded in order to get him into the prisoners' truck. Inside the truck, the soldiers continued to assault him and beat him arbitrarily with their hands, feet, and the butts of their rifles. As a result, he suffered many wounds, bruises, and bruises. He also suffered a deep wound in his right foot. He also suffered a broken finger in his hand. They entered him directly for interrogation, and he asked the interrogator to give him first aid and treat him, and clean the wounds and blood, but the interrogator refused and instead of treating him, two soldiers entered him and assaulted and beat him, then tied his feet in addition to his hands and interrogated him for two hours while he was in pain and stained with his blood.

The prisoner continued that from the Hawara detainee he was transferred to the Detention and Interrogation Detention Center in Petah Tikva, and he arrived at dawn hours, then they put him in a solitary cell, and inside the cell he used the existing water bottle to wash the blood that filled his face and feet, and even in Petah Tikva they did not provide him with any treatment or first aid. And he remained in detention for 20 days, during these days he was given a few meals, and there were days when they did not bring him any meal and he remained hungry, but some of the food he got was wrapped in papers, Ibrahim used to take these papers and stick them to the place of his wounds.

The visit that President Mahmoud Abbas is currently making to the People's Republic of China and his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, is considered one of the most important visits that President Abbas made to China, whether in terms of timing or in terms of its outputs and the circumstances the Palestinian issue is going through, and the attempts of the occupying power to resolve the conflict In its favour, it exploits the international circumstances and the protection of America and Western European countries for it, and preventing its punishment, which makes it persist and arrogant in its practices and violations against our people and its attempt to liquidate the Palestinian cause.

President Abbas is the first president to be invited to visit China and meet with Chinese President Ping this year, and in the wake of the elections that took place in China and the renewal of the Chinese president for a new presidency due to the achievements he made during his previous terms of progress for China in all fields, especially economic, military and other scientific fields. and technological.

China's invitation to President Abbas and his meeting with the Chinese President at this particular time means making the Palestinian issue a focus not only for talks between the two sides, but also making this issue alive despite all the assassination plots and attempts to end and resolve the conflict that the occupying state is carrying out.

China is a major supporter of the Palestinian cause at all political, diplomatic and economic levels, which our people will never forget, especially in the UN Security Council and the United Nations, where it stands by all special resolutions related to the Palestinian cause.

Not only that, but China affirms the right of our people to establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of June 4, 1967 AD, and opposes Israeli practices and violations, especially the settlement crimes and herds of settlers.

More importantly, our people look forward to the People's State of China playing a role in ending the Palestinian division, which caused the decline of the Palestinian cause, and the occupation's exploitation of this division to pass its policies of liquidation and ethnic cleansing, falsifying history and facts, and replacing the real Palestinian narrative with a forged Israeli one that has nothing to do with truth and reality.

Just as China succeeded in restoring relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran to its former state, and dealt a strong blow to America and the occupying state, which tried to delude the Arab countries, especially the Gulf states, that their enemy is Iran and not the Israeli occupation, so that this scheme, which has no basis in truth, except to make the occupying state the dominant one, was exposed. on the area.

China, with its international weight and standing by our people, its cause and all its other issues, is qualified to play a mediating role to end the division, and this is what our people and many national forces hope for, to restore the national and geographical unity that was torn apart by the division and which seems to be on its way to secession, which requires Chinese mediation that It is respected not only by our people, but by all the peoples of the Arab nation, in addition to the Arab and Islamic regimes and parties.

Will China play this hoped-for role that our people will glorify forever and ever?