Today, Wednesday, the Israeli occupation forces arrested 38 citizens from various parts of the West Bank.

If Arafat had objected to the summary of what was agreed upon in Oslo, it would not have been published for an hour.
If he had not spread his revolutionary keffiyeh at the negotiating table with Israel, the table would not have existed in the first place.
In doing so, he received half of the Nobel Peace Prize, excluding the architect of Oslo, while the other half went to Rabin and Peres.
At the beginning of the process of transferring agreements and understandings from paper to reality, Arafat was receiving in Gaza world leaders who came to him in a demonstration of support and adoption of the “historic project.” During that period, Arafat often described Rabin as “my friend,” and when he was killed, Arafat continued to keep the word “my friend.” , adding “the deceased.”

The assassination of Rabin required the assassination of Arafat, but before that could be done, a massive propaganda operation took place, the central idea of which was that Arafat was the only obstructionist to the peace process, which necessitated getting rid of him.

The power in Israel had fallen to the fiercest politician who rejected the principle of peace with the Palestinians, Benjamin Netanyahu, and with him the fiercest military man, Ariel Sharon, whose name was associated with the Sabra and Shatila massacres, after leading the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Finally, Arafat was eliminated, and the presidency was given to his colleague in the historical leadership of Fatah and his twin in the risk of peace, Mahmoud Abbas.

Mahmoud Abbas has been called the architect of Oslo... He was the one who managed the secret negotiations on a daily basis, but he would not send a single line to the negotiators and their leader, Ahmed Qurei, until it had been approved within the limited leadership framework that was established to direct the negotiations, meaning that the man was not working on his own whims. 

During the life of Arafat the world proposed Abbas as prime minister, a position that Arafat held in addition to his many positions at the top. Arafat reluctantly accepted the idea of heading a government separate from his presidency, and only four months had passed since its formation until Abbas found himself unable to perform its duties. He discovered that the world that introduced this formula seemed unable to meet what it fundamentally needed in terms of convincing progress in the political process with Israel.

According to the family hierarchy in Fatah, the organization, and history, Abbas occupied Arafat's position, and indeed all of his positions after his death.

His welcome stemmed from a belief that the architect of Oslo would succeed in achieving what Arafat could not achieve, which is ending the occupation, as promised by the “historical reconciliation” literature, and moving from self-rule to an independent state that would address the refugee issue in a state-with-state reality. Unfortunately for him, his occupation of the position of the first man from the beginning until now has been associated with a series of failures and collapses of the peace process, with the occurrence of the second catastrophe, which is the division between West Bank and Gaza, and the defeat of “Fatah” in the general elections against the competitor “Hamas,” which plunged the country and the issue into a dark tunnel from which it seemed as if there was no way out.

Things continued to go down this slope, until we reached where we are now, that is, the war in Gaza, and what is more dangerous than it in the West Bank.

Before this war, during Abbas’s presidency, the Authority was subjected to humiliation and insults, with the aim of diminishing its prestige among its people and transforming it from a promising project for the state into a mere security arm for an occupation that has not stopped settling and abusing the lives of the Palestinians, especially in Area A, which the Authority is supposed to have sovereignty, without Abbas being spared incitement against him, the idea on which the Israeli narrative is based is that the man is unable to do what is required of him in the field of Israel’s security, so his authority is unnecessary.

However, the Americans have another say about him and his authority. There is no mention of an assassination or overthrow, but rather a change they are undertaking to determine his position in it - with an honorary presidency -.

The methods were different, but the goal was the same.
People have changed and the desired result is the same, and the American Godfather of the process is still looking for one or several people who will adhere to the text and not deviate from it. As for the real interests of the Palestinian people, which center on freedom and independence, this is the last thing the Godfather is thinking about.

By Alsahabi Al-Majri

The French philosopher and sociologist Raymond Aron says: Many left-wing intellectuals did the same thing as my experience: “They forget for a while imperialism and the colonial reality, remember their origins, and find themselves, to their astonishment, Jews.” This matter was revealed unequivocally in the statement issued by the most important philosophers today, Jurgen Habermas, the philosopher of critical theory and one of the most important philosophers of communicative theory and dialogue ethics, and one of the most influential philosophers currently on the philosophical debate about public space and post-secularism, and one of the symbols of post-modernism.

Today, Habermas reveals that talk about universal values, humanity, and coexistence are nothing but empty slogans when it comes to protecting Israel in the face of what Habermas considered in his statement the brutality of the unprecedented attack launched by Hamas, and that everything that is happening now in Gaza is borne by the resistance alone, and that the Israeli occupation does not bears the burden of the genocide in Gaza while expressing some concern for the fate of the Palestinian population.

Rather, he went further than that, as he considered the democratic spirit of the Federal Republic of Germany to be linked to a political culture that considers Jewish life and the right of the Israeli occupation to exist as two basic elements that deserve special protection, and that adherence to them is essential to our common political life, such that political life cannot be sustained without it, and this approach will continue. When former Chancellor Merkel said that Israel's security is a "national interest"; she considered that the reason for Germany's existence was Israel and not the other way around.

It is blind loyalty to Zionism that does not befit someone of Habermas' stature. We do not find in the statement signed with a German elite of global stature any reference to the genocide in Gaza, but we find in it all possible justifications for this genocide, and all possible legislation in the name of self-defense to kill children, which is fundamentally inconsistent with philosophical thinking.

The guilt complex from the Nazi period is what moved the German political mind towards the Zionist movement, which called for the establishment of a state for the Jews on usurped land. Today, it is once again allied and colluding with a fascist occupation that commits massacres in Gaza to push the Palestinians there to emigrate outside it, and the more the people of the land cling to their land, the more the machine abuses them. The Israeli war, while defending its crimes against civilians in Gaza, are defended by politicians, philosophers, thinkers and intellectuals in the West, ignoring all the human values that they defended in their speeches. 

We will discover in the end that this speech is directed only to Western people and that it does not look at the rest, especially the people of the Middle East. However, they are part of that human being. Just as they defended genocide in Fallujah, Iraq, they today defend genocide in Palestine, claiming that Israel’s goal is to achieve peace in the future, since it is a war, as Habermas says in his statement, accompanied by the possibility (not certain) of peace in the future. When was peace achieved under the fire of genocidal cannons?!

The absolute war practiced by the occupation cannot achieve peace, given that it is a brutal war whose goal is to completely crush the other in order to completely nullify his resistance. While realistic war aims to push the other to accept peace and ward off harm. The statement legislates for the first and contradicts the second, and thus it becomes a philosophical discourse that opposes philosophy itself, considering that it is a speech for peace and not for war, whether absolute or realistic. The goal of philosophy is to liberate man from the state of nature, where war of all against all prevails, to the civil state, where peace prevails, which can only be achieved by rejecting hatred. The absolute war practiced by the Israeli occupation is based on absolute hatred for the enemy, while realistic war whose goal is peace ends with hatred, and just as peace replaces war, love replaces hatred. The genocide practiced by the occupation cannot in any way achieve the desired peace, but rather makes exiting from the natural state impossible.

The attack on October 7th on the occupation settlement outposts in the occupied land of Palestine is considered a landmark event that will have major repercussions on the region as a whole and will change the face of future alliances in the world. This event, which represented a huge shock from a military and political perspective, revealed the truth about the positions of the Western powers, led by the United States and the old colonial countries, in absolute support of the Israeli occupation that has occupied Palestine for nearly a hundred years, and the background of this support, which is based on some religious foundations, no matter how some try to deny it. The absolute Western support can be understood from Bush Jr.'s slip of the tongue after the events of September 11 when he spoke of a crusade, and Western support is part of that war and is the motivation for all positions of Western countries. Today we see how the Zionist movement is allied with the extreme right, which dominates most Western governments and controls the Western media, which adopts the Israeli vision of what is happening in Palestine.

What happened in Palestine changed the face of the world and revealed everyone's true positions, and confirmed that freedom cannot be guided, but rather taken away by force, and that the only option to liberate Palestine is armed resistance inside it and peaceful resistance outside it to liberate the Arab peoples from the internal colonialism crushed by the occupation.

Peaceful popular resistance is the only way for people to liberate themselves from that colonialism. It is not in the interest of the people to engage in armed resistance from which only those with interests can benefit. Perhaps what happened in Syria, Yemen and Libya is evidence of that. Only those loyal to tyranny and neo-colonialism benefited from the movement for liberation from tyranny. It is also not in the interest of the people to destroy the infrastructure of the state, which is in fact the property of the people and not the property of the ruler, no matter who that ruler is. Peaceful resistance, as the spring of 2011 proved, is capable of achieving what is required, but only that the people must not hand over their revolution except to those who deserve it, so that the forces of the counter-revolution do not infiltrate it and contribute to its destruction from within, as happened with the Egyptian revolution and after it the Tunisian revolution. It is a lesson that must be remembered in the upcoming wave of revolutions that are approaching.

The liberation of Palestine inevitably comes with the liberation of the Arab and Islamic peoples from the agents of neocolonialism and from the intellectual elites affiliated with them, who are trying in every way to direct public opinion towards burying the Palestinian issue, and seducing it with imaginary economic gains from normalization with the Israeli occupation, which violates the sanctity of Palestine, while the reality reveals those countries will only turn into a vast market for goods for Israel, as it will remain the sole beneficiary, while the normalizers’ sole goal is to possess more tools for monitoring and abusing their people and to obtain complete American satisfaction, even if their practice is completely inconsistent with all the values that the West defends.

When the interests of the peoples of the region conflict with the interests of Washington, it becomes the greatest supporter of the most repressive regimes in the world, and perhaps recent history bears witness to this in Africa, South America, and the Middle East. How many democratic governments and projects to build a democratic state were aborted with the full blessing of the United States and the Western powers, which falsely claim defending the values of freedom, dignity, and the right of peoples to self-determination, and defending the great lie about the right of peoples to rational and just democratic rule that achieves dignity for peoples and equality before the law, whereby people are transformed from subjects to citizens.

Since the overthrow of the Mosaddegh government in Iran until today, Western powers have been the largest supporter of repressive regimes and tyranny, because this serves their interests in plundering people’s wealth through their local agents. Perhaps the example of France in Niger is the greatest evidence of this, as it was plundering its natural wealth while fully supporting an oppressive rule that impoverished the people and filled the coffers of Paris.

Africa has begun to be liberated from neo-colonialism and liberated from Western hegemony, and the next turn is for the Arab and Islamic countries, whose time has come for their liberation. What happened in Palestine marked the beginning of the liberation of those peoples. The new generation that blessed and supported the resistance is not governed by the ideologies of the dominant regimes and elites. Rather, it does not believe in those elites at all and disbelieves in them and all their imaginary projects for a better future. Rather, they believe that they are an obstacle whose time has come to disappear and set so that a new sun can rise that will pave the way for liberation. Saladin would not have liberated Jerusalem if he had not liberated the surroundings of Palestine from all the rulers who had ties with the Crusaders.

Seven years ago today, Ari Shavit wrote an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in which he pointed out that Israel is breathing its last, despite all the propaganda machine and military arrogance. We add that the decline of Israel will be accompanied by the decline of the Orientalist elites and pro-colonial regimes. The time has come when these people die. Their last breath, they have no future, just as they have no present, because normalization does not come from the vision of the people, and the normalized elites use all tools of oppression and arrogance to prevent their people from expressing their position rejecting normalization, but for how long?

The lesson of Palestine revealed that there is no invincible enemy. 

The resistance attack revealed the fragility of the occupation, despite all the arrogance with which it deals with the Palestinians and peoples in the region every day. Perhaps the massive support of the Western powers for the occupation is due to the fact that what happened sent them a warning of an existential threat to the occupation and its interests in the region. If only a thousand fighters caused all this, what if that force was in the tens of thousands, ending colonialism from its roots in one day?

The Western support we see today may postpone the inevitable, but it will happen in the end. No matter how much Western countries try to protect the occupation, in the end it will breathe its last, with all the tyrannical regimes in the region. There is no future except for the forces of freedom and dignity.

Source:Arabic Post

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership welcomed the humanitarian truce agreement, renewing the call for a comprehensive cessation of the Israeli occupation’s aggression against the Gaza Strip.

Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hussein Al-Sheikh, said that Abbas and the Palestinian leadership welcome the humanitarian truce agreement, appreciating the Qatari-Egyptian effort that has been made.

According to Al-Sheikh, “We renew the call for a comprehensive cessation of aggression against the Palestinian people, the introduction of humanitarian aid, and the implementation of the political solution based on international legitimacy that leads to an end to the occupation and the Palestinian people’s attainment of their freedom, independence and sovereignty.”

Humanitarian truce

On Wednesday, Qatar officially announced the conclusion of a humanitarian truce agreement in the Gaza Strip, and the success of joint mediation efforts with the Arab Republic of Egypt and the United States of America between Tel Aviv and the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas”, which resulted in reaching an agreement for a humanitarian truce, the timing of which will be announced within 24 hours. It lasts for four days and can be extended.

The agreement includes the exchange of 50 civilian women and children prisoners in the Gaza Strip in the first phase in exchange for the release of a number of Palestinian women and children detained in Israeli prisons, provided that the number of those released will be increased in later stages of implementing the agreement.

Humanitarian convoys

The truce will allow the entry of a larger number of humanitarian convoys and relief aid, including fuel designated for humanitarian needs.

‏

Qatar affirmed the continuation of its diplomatic efforts to reduce the escalation, stop bloodshed, and protect civilians, and in this regard, it appreciates the efforts made by the sisterly Arab Republic of Egypt and the United States of America in supporting mediation efforts to reach this agreement.

The surprise only lasts for a short period of time after it occurs. This period may be longer or shorter depending on the ability of the person who was surprised by the event to become aware of it and gather himself in preparation for dealing with the new reality.

Someone who is surprised usually goes through a state of shock (Trauma), which in turn, i.e. the shock, requires four stages to get out of it: a state of denial, a state of anger, a state of acceptance of the event, and then a promise to get out of the crisis. The shorter the time between the states of denial and acceptance, the less effective the shock will be, and the faster, better, and less costly the project of getting out of it will be.

But what is certain is that the memory of surprise is embedded in individual memory, as well as in the collective memory of nations. Nations take lessons from the strategic surprises they have encountered, in order to prepare policies and strategies for the future. So, it is truly an inflection point in the path of the lives of nations. But taking lessons and learnings from the past does not protect it from falling into the trap of surprises again. Surprise is the result of the environment and the objective circumstances in which it occurs. Whenever these circumstances changed, the surprise varied and was repeated.

There are many levels of surprise. There is the personal surprise, of an unexpected event. There is a surprise at the nation level. Last but not least, there is absolutely no such thing as a complete and total surprise. There are always signs of something unusual, being ignored, due to arrogance or belittling the other - the enemy. This takes us to psychology.

Human bias

Psychology says that humans are naturally biased toward certain things, such as evaluating, judging, remembering, or making decisions. A person can believe the first news he hears. It is also difficult to change his convictions later. He, the human being, is always searching for arguments that confirm what he is convinced of. The goal is always to simplify the decision-making process, and the most important thing is to save effort and energy. Inactivity is a major characteristic of human life.

Historical examples

Japan's Pearl Harbor surprise against the United States changed America, Japan, and the world as a whole. In this surprise, Japan adopted diplomatic deception with America. Its ambassador in Washington continued to negotiate with the American government, while his country was preparing and carrying out the attack as a result of which America entered World War II, transformed the Far East region, and used nuclear weapons to resolve the war. The results of the attack also changed Japan itself, from an autocratic country to a democracy, after American General Douglas MacArthur helped write the Japanese constitution, including giving women their rights. At that time, MacArthur ruled Japan directly for a short period. The United States still has a military presence in Japan to this day.

The “October War” of 1973 was not as surprising as Pearl Harbor. It was a limited regional war, to stimulate diplomacy. It occurred within a bipolar world system, largely governed by the dynamics of war and peace. But it was a strategic surprise for Israel. It struck the image of its “invincible” army. It equated the quality between Eastern weapons and Western weapons, which made analysts say that what is most important in wars is not “quantity,” nor only “quality.” Rather, “how” must also be included in the equation.

In the “July War” (July 2006) in Lebanon, Hezbollah surprised Israel by kidnapping soldiers and retreated. Israel responded with a war that lasted 33 days, but it was surprised by important things such as: how unprepared the Israeli forces were for this war, how incomplete the tactical and strategic inquiry was due to involvement in the internal uprising in Israel, and how much Hezbollah had prepared for a war it wanted, so it prepared the stage as he wishes.

Hamas' surprise and the Israeli response

In general, nothing is hidden between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The clash continues, even if it is intermittent. Both teams want the maximum number of goals - canceling out the other. There is the most modern army in the world, versus a player from outside the country. Each team plays on the other's weaknesses (Asymmetry). The achievement for each team did not go beyond scoring points in the record of the wars that took place between them. In their previous wars, surprise did not have a strategic dimension in its effects. The clash between them was limited to bombing and mutual shelling, with a change in the Israeli approach at times through a partial ground military entry into the Gaza Strip.

The surprise of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” radically changed the dynamic of the military equation between them. Israel saw that this surprise violated the rules of the grand strategy for Israeli national security, and these rules include: 

waging the war on enemy territory, ending the war quickly because the Israeli interior cannot tolerate a long war, and striking the enemy to a degree that makes it unable to compensate within a short period of time. 

In this context, the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation constituted a bigger crisis for Israel than the clash it has been accustomed to with “Hamas” since 2009, but it, that is, the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, does not constitute a direct existential threat to the entity of Israel as a state, unless it is repeated and accumulated. Israel did not respond to it immediately as it should have.

In its response to the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, Israel did not respect international law, especially the aspect related to the principle of “proportionality”. 

The war on Hamas is a comprehensive war. It aims most of all to eliminate this Islamic movement, and to create an environment in Gaza that is radically different from what this environment was during the days of Hamas rule. Due to the absence of strategic surprise, Israel intends to create “tactical surprises” by adopting the following approach:

- A media blackout on military operations, including from the Israeli press, except when Israel wants to pass on news that helps its military operations.

Within the Gaza Strip, in addition to air and ground control, Israel exercises what is called “Digital Dominance” by cutting off the Internet, cell phone communications, and everything related to the communications sector. If it allows you to use the Internet from time to time, it will definitely benefit from intelligence by eavesdropping on everything.

Israel collects tactical intelligence whenever it advances on the ground, and has therefore established a special intelligence unit for this war that coordinates between all combat units.

- Israel aims to attack the tunnel system in the Gaza Strip, most of which, according to public sources (sources open to the public), are located in the north of the Gaza Strip. However, the starting and returning points for these tunnels from Hamas fighters are located inside Gaza City, which is the center of gravity of the movement.

Therefore, depending on the progress of the Israeli army on the ground, its soldiers may not be seen fighting inside the tunnels, but they will certainly seek to control their entrances, and strike the entire system that serves them, including ventilation, lighting, logistical matters, etc., in order to bring the Hamas movement to the point of feeling an actual existential threat that will force it to open the door for the exchange of hostages and prisoners.

Source: Alsharq Alawsat / Military analyst

At least 9 citizens were killed and others were injured, this Wednesday morning, in a new massacre committed by the Israeli forces by targeting a house in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Medical sources reported that 9 citizens, including children, were killed as a result of the Israeli occupation aircraft bombing a house for the Ayyash family in the Nuseirat camp.

The Israeli forces committed a massacre in northern Gaza at dawn today, killing more than 60 innocent civilians from the Jabalia camp in northeastern Gaza, according to what was confirmed by an unidentified source.

The death toll as a result of the ongoing occupation aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip since the seventh of last October has risen to more than 14,100 martyrs, including more than 5,840 children and 3,920 women, in addition to more than 33,000 wounded, and more than 6,800 missing, including more. Of 4,500 children and women.

Scottish human rights activist Pete Gregson celebrated the failure of the film “Golda” - which tells the biography of the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir - and its withdrawal from most British cinemas.

Gregson had launched a campaign in which he called for a boycott of the film and its withdrawal from theaters in the United Kingdom, coinciding with a global wave of anger over the thousands of victims of women and children in the war that Israel has waged on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.

Gregson, who heads the “One Palestine and Democracy” association, which is concerned with defending the cause of the Palestinian people and their rights, posted a video clip on his TikTok account in which he stood in front of one of the theaters in the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, holding a leaflet in his hand calling for a boycott of the film.

He said - in the video - “I am here outside the Picture House cinema in Piccadilly Circus. I came today to distribute leaflets against the movie “Golda”, but guess what? The movie is not showing, the cinema is not showing the movie, they canceled it. I went to the box office I found that all the Picture House theaters canceled showing the film. They all canceled it except Edinburgh, where I am from!

Gregson added, "There is only one cinema in the whole of the United Kingdom showing the movie 'Golda', and it is one of the Picture House cinemas. I do not know if this is a victory for us, a victory for Palestine. In any case, no one is showing it."

The campaign led by Gregson coincided with the British newspaper "Daily Mail" talking about the failure of the film "Golda", in which Helen Mirren plays the lead role, despite it being nominated for an Oscar.

A number of supporters of the Palestinian cause in the United Kingdom and the United States took to social media to call for a boycott of the film.

It is believed that the protests caused exhibitors and moviegoers to refrain from supporting “Golda,” which was confirmed by a spokesman for the “Phoenix” cinema in north London, saying, “It is clear that the current political climate may have had an impact on the film’s box office revenues.”

It is noteworthy that the film's distribution company in the United Kingdom, Met Films, issued a statement in which it acknowledged the "distress, fear, and anxiety" felt by people in the United Kingdom and in the region, which cast a shadow over the film.

source: Aljazeera.net

Gaza, with its oppressed people, became a victim of a very simple equation. The Hamas movement launched an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which destabilized the entity of that state, especially since it led to large human losses of more than one thousand and two hundred people killed, in addition to the capture of dozens of Israelis, including a good number of soldiers. More than that, the attack destroyed the most important thing that Israel possesses and is proud of, namely the deterrence force that makes any party count ten times before launching an attack against it. What remains of Israel after it lost its deterrence power in the face of an armed organization, called "Hamas" and not in front of a state?

On the other hand, Israel, which was exposed by the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” had no choice but to take revenge in a brutal way after it discovered that it was fighting what it considered to be a life of war or death. This is at least what every Israeli feels who suddenly discovers that certain areas of the Hebrew state have become completely exposed to a movement like Hamas. There are areas where Israelis can no longer live, whether in the Gaza Strip or along the border with Lebanon. It must be recognized that the attack launched by Hamas radically changed the nature of Israel.

From Gaza, Hamas fought a war without a political horizon. The Islamic movement, which is an integral part of the global organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, despite its denials, cannot say what it wants and what the goal of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” is. Did it expect to open other fronts at the same time or was it just that it embarked on an uncalculated adventure whose results and repercussions are difficult to predict on the Palestinian level and in the entire region?

On the other hand, Israel is also fighting a war that has no political horizon. The absence of a political horizon seems to be what brings Hamas and Israel together at the present time, especially with Benjamin Netanyahu in power. What does Israel want from the destruction of the Strip, whose area does not exceed 365 thousand square kilometers and in which more than two million two hundred thousand Palestinians live? It is certain that it is not enough for Israel to consider that it has regained the deterrent power that it lost on October 7, 2023, for it to rest and think seriously that it cannot abolish the Palestinian people and remove them from existence.

Netanyahu's government is exploiting the "Al-Aqsa flood" to go beyond revenge and restore deterrence at the same time. It practically seeks to eliminate Gaza from existence. The most dangerous thing is that there is no one who can stop its crazy war on Gaza, which is likely to move to the West Bank. Such a transition, if it occurs, will not be according to a Palestinian agenda, but rather according to the agenda of the Netanyahu government. This right-wing government seeks to displace a portion of the West Bank population to Jordan, in implementation of an old, unattainable dream of the Israeli right.

Such an Israeli approach makes King Abdullah II very cautious and pushes him to focus on a very important point, which is stopping the Gaza war as soon as possible and seriously searching for a political solution. The position of the Jordanian monarch appears to be the height of sanity, with the aim of getting rid of the absence of politics on the one hand, and the Israeli madness that does not appear to have limits on the other hand.

It is no longer a secret that Israeli madness threatens stability in the entire region, especially with the continuing clashes between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon and with Iran exploiting the Gaza war to show its muscles in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. The "Islamic Republic" is flexing its muscles in Yemen, where the Houthis have moved in the Red Sea and are threatening navigation in it. The same applies to Syria, where the militias affiliated with Iran are the force in complete control of the regime headed by Bashar al-Assad. In Iraq, there is no longer an illusion that the state is the "Popular Mobilization Forces" militias that are mobilizing in border areas with Jordan and acting as if it were the Iraqi state or what was left of it...

Who will extricate the region from the absence of policy that is so clearly and brazenly expressed by Israeli brutality? What is certain is that the Joe Biden administration has all good and sincere intentions. This is what the US President expressed in the article he recently wrote in the Washington Post, in which he spoke again about the two-state solution. Talking about two states, Palestinian and Israeli, is beautiful and realistic. But this talk, which is accompanied by the need for a new national authority in Ramallah and a radical change in Israel, requires first and foremost an American president with leadership qualities. Such a president tells Israel, the first thing he says is that enough is enough. He also told the "Islamic Republic" of Iran that threatening to expand the war is of no use, on the one hand, and that its game based on blackmail is exposed, on the other hand.

Can the American administration fill the void resulting from the absence of politics, especially after it became clear that there is no viable political project for Hamas, while the Palestinian Authority is in a state of wear and tear, and there will be no more wear and tear... and Israel is just a faded monster that possesses nothing but weapons of killing and destruction!

Source: Annahar

Five young men were killed after being targeted by a missile from an Israeli drone, at dawn on Wednesday, during a massive incursion by the occupation forces into the city of Tulkarm and its camp.

The occupation forces stormed the city of Tulkarm with a large number of military vehicles, including two bulldozers, and surrounded all roads leading to the Tulkarm camp.

The occupation forces deployed snipers on a number of buildings surrounding the Tulkarm camp, and declared the camp a closed military zone.

The Israeli forces arrested one of the wounded after storming the emergency department at Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in Tulkarm, where Israeli vehicles surrounded the entrances to the hospital and were present in front of it, which hindered the arrival of the injured to receive treatment.

The occupation forces surrounded Al-Israa Specialized Hospital in Tulkarm, and chased and searched ambulances as they were transporting the injured.

The Israeli forces also surrounded Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in Tulkarm, and several Israeli vehicles were present at the emergency entrance.

The potential deal includes the release of 53 Israeli hostages and prisoners, including children and women, from the Gaza Strip, in exchange for a 4-day truce, during which Israel will stop air operations for 6 hours a day.

On Tuesday night - Wednesday, the Israeli government approved the conclusion of a prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, which includes the release of 50 hostages held in the Gaza Strip.

The approval came by an overwhelming majority, as 3 members, the ministers of Otzma Yehudit, which is headed by the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, voted against the decision.

While the Religious Zionism Party, headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, announced that it opposed the deal, it ultimately voted in favor of its conclusion.

The war and the continuous Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip and areas populated by people and displaced persons resulted in the martyrdom of more than 14,128 martyrs, including more than 5,840 children and 3,920 women, while the number of missing persons rose to more than 6,800 missing persons, including more than 4,500 children and women, according to official data issued. From the Government Information Office in Gaza and the Ministry of Health.

At a time when the war and Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip have continued for 46 days, the talks to conclude a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and the Hamas movement have reached a final stage and are at the closest point to reaching an agreement, including in exchange for the release of each Israeli hostage, the release of 3 Palestinian prisoners, including children and women. From the occupation prisons.

In light of the developments regarding the expected prisoner exchange deal, the office of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced the reconciliation of the cabinet, with its reduced and expanded formation, in addition to holding a government session, this evening.

It was reported that the potential deal between Israel and Hamas includes the release of 53 Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, including 40 children and 13 women, in exchange for a 4-day truce including a ceasefire, Israel stopping air operations for 6 hours a day during the truce, and the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners, including children and women, in addition to increasing aid and bringing fuel into the Gaza Strip.

It is expected that Israel will increase the days of the truce to more than 6 days in the event of releasing a larger number of hostages, which will likely reach 70 hostages, including children and women. In return, Israel will also release more Palestinian prisoners from its prisons. In total, there may be 240 male and female prisoners.

This comes as raids continue, targeting hospitals, homes, and populated areas, leaving dozens of martyrs and wounded among civilians and medical teams. Many areas in the Gaza Strip are also witnessing fierce clashes and battles between the occupation forces and resistance factions.

Today, Tuesday, the Israeli army announced the killing of an officer and a soldier in ground battles in Gaza, and on Monday, it announced the killing of two soldiers, both from the Paratroopers Brigade, in clashes in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as the killing of a third from the Givati Brigade, raising the number of dead Israeli soldiers. The number of officers has risen to 69 since the start of the ground incursion on October 27, while the army’s death toll has reached 390 soldiers and officers since October 7.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must condemn the violence carried out by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.

She stated in a statement to the newspaper "Deutsche Welle", on Tuesday, that Netanyahu must condemn the acts of settler violence and investigate them. She indicated that this matter is also necessary for the security of Israel, pointing out that the latter is responsible for ensuring that chaos does not escalate in the West Bank.

Regarding the Gaza Strip, she stressed the need to make efforts to ensure that people in Gaza have safe places where they can obtain drinking water and medicines. She pointed out that people in Gaza must be protected, as the war is against the Hamas movement, and not against innocent civilians, women and children.

She defended her country's position of rejecting a ceasefire in Gaza, claiming that this would make Hamas gain more time and gather its strength.

Various parts of the West Bank, including the city of East Jerusalem, are witnessing incursions into villages and towns by the Israeli army, accompanied by confrontations, arrests, and shooting and tear gas bombs at Palestinians.

During this period, more than 200 West Bank residents were killed by occupation bullets, in addition to the injury of about 2,800. The tensions in the West Bank coincide with the ongoing devastating Israeli war on Gaza, which has so far led to the martyrdom of more than 14,000 Palestinians, most of whom are women and children, in addition to the injury of More than 33 thousand others.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Israeli settlers set fire to the Zanuta Mixed Basic School, south of Hebron, causing three classrooms to burn down.

A local source in the village of Zanuta reported that a group of settlers burned three classrooms in the village school, noting that the school was subjected to two burning attempts during the past month, in addition to a settler assault on a female school employee.

The rate of attacks by settlers, under the protection of the Israeli forces, on citizens in the village and their property has escalated recently, forcing 36 families to forcibly leave.

The White House says that it is in possession of information indicating that the Russian armed Wagner Group is working to provide air defense capabilities to either Hezbollah or Iran, at the direction of the Russian government.

The White House said on Tuesday that the Russian armed Wagner Group is preparing to strengthen the air defenses of Lebanese Hezbollah or the regime in Tehran, as part of “unprecedented defense cooperation” between the two rivals of the United States.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, “Our information...indicates that Wagner, under the direction of the Russian government, was preparing to provide an air defense capability to either Hezbollah or Iran.”

Regarding the prisoner exchange deal, Kirby said: “We are closer than ever. We believe we are getting closer.” He added, "We will not say, nor do we want to say, anything in these sensitive hours that would expose the agreement to greater danger."

This comes as an American official confirmed that Hamas and Israel are close to reaching an agreement that includes the movement’s release of 50 hostages, most of them women and children, in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners and a truce for four.

The official said that there is a preliminary agreement, but it is not final until everything is agreed upon. "We believe we are very close to reaching an agreement. There is still a lot of work to be done, and approval still needs to be obtained," he added.

"We think we are very close," he added.

In turn, US President Joe Biden announced today that an agreement to release some Israeli hostages in Gaza is “very close.”

He told reporters at the White House, "My team is moving between the capitals of the region. We are now very close to returning some of these hostages to their homeland very soon. But I do not want to go into details until the matter is finished."

"When we have more to say, we will," he added.

Biden's optimistic comments echo statements in the region in this regard. The Hamas leader said that a truce agreement with Israel was imminent, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that he hoped to get good news soon regarding the hostages.

On a daily basis since October 8, the Israeli army has exchanged sporadic bombardments with Hezbollah and Palestinian factions in Lebanon, leaving dead and wounded on both sides of the border.

These confrontations continue in the wake of a war waged by the Israeli army for 46 days on the Gaza Strip. So far, it has resulted in the martyrdom of 14,128 Palestinian martyrs, including more than 5,840 children and 3,920 women, in addition to more than 33,000 injured, 75% of whom are children and women, according to the government media office in Gaza.

Israeli reports confirm that the deal is imminent, and may go into effect on Thursday and be announced later today. For every Israeli prisoner and hostage, three prisoners will be released in the occupation prisons, with a focus on children and women from both sides.

The Israeli report indicated that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu intends to approve, later today, Tuesday, a prisoner exchange deal in the Gaza Strip with Hamas, under which the movement will release Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for a temporary ceasefire and the release of prisoners in Israeli prisons. 

The Israeli government's agenda shows that Benjamin Netanyahu's government will approve the deal in a session that will be held later this evening, after two sessions of the military cabinet and the Ministerial Council for Political and Security Affairs, with the Israeli public being given the opportunity to object to the deal on Wednesday, in petitions submitted to the Supreme Court.

If this deal comes into effect, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin next Thursday morning, and will coincide with the release of the first batch of Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip. The first batch, according to the Israeli Channel 12, may include 10 prisoners.

The reports pointed to the support of the Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevy, and senior military leaders, for the deal, and they estimate that it will not affect the conduct of the military operations of the occupation army in the Gaza Strip, and that “the priority is to return the hostages and detainees.” For his part, the Israeli Minister of Security said that it will be necessary to The Israeli government is “making difficult decisions.”

In light of the developments regarding the expected prisoner exchange deal, the office of the Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, announced the reconciliation of the cabinet, with its reduced and expanded formation, in two successive sessions held at six and seven o’clock, respectively, in addition to holding a government session later this evening.

It is expected that the agreement will collide with strong opposition from Netanyahu’s partners from the extreme right, represented by the “Otzma Yehudit” party, headed by the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, and the “Religious Zionism” party, headed by the Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, while estimates indicate that the Haredim, represented by the two parties SAS and United Torah Judaism will support the deal.

He also announced that the Director-General of Netanyahu's office, Yossi Sheli, held a meeting with the Director-Generals of government ministries to "prepare to address all the required civil aspects," in light of "developments related to the release of the kidnapped," according to what was stated in a separate statement.

Details of the transaction

It was reported that the potential deal between Israel and Hamas includes the release of 53 Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, including 40 children and 13 women, in exchange for a 4-day truce, including a ceasefire, Israel stopping air operations for 6 hours a day during the truce, and the release of 150 prisoners. Palestinian children and women, in addition to increasing aid and bringing fuel into the Gaza Strip.

It is expected that Israel will increase the days of the truce to more than 6 days in the event of releasing a larger number of hostages, which will likely reach 70 hostages, including children and women. In return, Israel will also release more Palestinian prisoners from Its prisons may hold a total of 240 male and female prisoners.

Channel 12 reported that the deal would include “about 50 Israeli hostages who will be released in batches, according to a pre-agreed list with a focus on children and mothers,” adding that “for every Israeli hostage, three Palestinian prisoners will be released,” stressing that the duration of the moratorium Shooting is four days.

The channel explained that "Israel will extend the days of the ceasefire, in exchange for the release of more hostages." In this case, more male and female prisoners will be released in the occupation prisons. The report confirmed that the deal includes a significant increase in the amounts of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, and allowing fuel to enter the Strip.

Channel 13 quoted an Israeli government official as saying that “the process of encircling the northern Gaza Strip will continue,” and that Israel rejected the Hamas movement’s condition to “allow the return of residents of the northern Gaza Strip who were displaced to the south to the northern regions.” The official explained that allowing fuel to enter the Strip would be Valid only during ceasefire days.

Estimates: A majority in the Israeli government is in favor of the agreement

Israeli reports indicated that Netanyahu has a majority within the government in favor of approving the potential agreement with Hamas and launching the exchange deal, despite the potential opposition of ministers in the “Religious Zionism” and “Otmesa Yehudit” parties, especially on the items related to the release of prisoners in occupation prisons. .

According to estimates, all Likud ministers, ministers of the Haredi parties, and ministers of the National Camp, in addition to some ministers of Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit, will vote in favor of the agreement, which is supported by all heads of the Israeli security services, including Hamas’ condition that the occupation suspend operations. Air Intelligence for 6 hours a day.

(Arab48)

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, the large number of Palestinian civilians killed, and the discussion about opening safe passages from Gaza to Egypt have revived a long-standing Jordanian fear: that Israel might create or use conditions of war to push a large number of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt and from the West Bank into Jordan.

Former prime minister Ariel Sharon, among other Israeli politicians, has raised the idea multiple times, claiming that Jordan can serve as an alternative home since many Jordanians are of Palestinian origin. 

When Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1994, Jordan insisted on including a clause to guard against the possibility of mass transfer. Article 2.6 of the treaty states that “within their control, involuntary movements of persons in such a way as to adversely prejudice the security of either Party should not be permitted.”

But Sharon’s once-fringe views are now front and center. Israel’s current government coalition includes two ministers who not only believe the West Bank and Gaza belong to Israel but also that the Palestinians living there have no right to do so. For the past month, both Jordan and Egypt have repeatedly declared that their borders would not be opened to receive even one Palestinian—not as a way to deny humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under attack but rather as a countermove to deny Israel the opportunity to empty the West Bank and Gaza of as many Palestinians as possible. Jordan’s fears are not unfounded, and its redline of refusing to admit Palestinians remains unlikely to change for several reasons.

The Jordanian government’s argument is logical. Israel has made clear through numerous government statements that it has no intention of ending the occupation or allowing the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 border. The apparent Israeli position is that the best that the Palestinians can hope for is more than self-rule but less than a state, in a “Bantustan”-like arrangement, surrounded on all sides by Israel. Such a plan was spelled out by former U.S. president Donald Trump’s “deal of the century,” widely suspected today to be a mere articulation of the Israeli position.

Jordan’s fear had been building even before the October 7 Hamas attack, thanks to another major yet often overlooked factor: demography. The number of Palestinians in areas under Israel’s control has now exceeded the number of Israeli Jews: 7.4 million Palestinians, some of them Israeli citizens, to 7.2 million Israelis. On average, every Palestinian woman has a birth rate of 4.1 children to 3 for every Israeli woman.

The trend is clear: the Palestinian majority is only going to increase with time. Israel cannot continue operating as a minority group ruling over a majority population with an apartheid-like legal structure—a designation used by B’Tselem (Israel’s largest human rights organization), Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and many others. 

Israel’s Palestinian citizens, who account for 21 percent of its population, have been legally deemed second-class citizens after a 2018 law declared that the country is a nation-state for the Jewish people. Palestinians under occupation are also subjected to a separate legal system than Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and Jerusalem. When Palestinians under occupation realize they are not going to be allowed a state of their own, their only alternative is to demand equal political rights where they live—which would be the end of the Zionist dream of a democratic Jewish state. From Jordan’s perspective, mass transfer has become a real possibility, not just a theoretical argument. 

If Israel does not want either a Palestinian state or a Palestinian majority, then the only alternative is to try to affect a mass transfer of as many Palestinians as possible. Past conventional wisdom implied that displacement is no longer tolerated by the international community, but the examples of Syria and Ukraine suggest otherwise: 6.5 million Syrians and 6 million Ukrainians fled their countries without the international community being able to prevent the refugee crises. In addition, U.S. administration officials have privately admitted that Jordan and Egypt have justifiable reasons to be concerned, and Washington has publicly stated that it stands against the relocation of Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt.

Palestinians and neighboring host states have history as their guide, too. In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians left or were expelled from the resulting new state of Israel, with only 150,000 remaining. Despite UN Resolution 194 affirming that refugees should be able to return to their homes, no Palestinian has officially able to do so. Today, Israel will not readmit any Palestinian who leaves because of war conditions outside Palestinian territory. Neither Palestinians nor host states are willing to entertain another Nakba, the name given to the expulsion of Palestinians from their home and land in 1948, no matter how bad the humanitarian situation gets.

So far, the war conditions have applied only to Gaza. But Jordan is concerned that Gaza might set a precedent for a similar escalation in the West Bank. Already, settler groups are raiding Palestinian villages daily with the backing of the Israeli army, driving Palestinians out. This creates the impression that radicals in the Israeli government see the current war in Gaza as an opportunity for ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

Jordan’s fears are also a matter of identity. The 1948 war resulted in a tripling of Jordan’s population, from about 430,000 to 1.2 million, with the addition of Palestinian refugees and inhabitants of the West Bank, which was annexed to Jordan. All Palestinian refugees were given Jordanian citizenship. Although the Jordanian constitution affirms that all citizens are equal before the law, the Jordanian establishment—the so-called East Jordanians, or the population in Jordan before 1948—never fully accepted that new order. The unwritten position is that Jordanians of Palestinian origin have to fully absorb the Jordanian identity, as defined by the East Jordanians pre-1948, no matter what the numbers of both communities are, out of fear that East Jordanian identity was in danger. This tension over identity remains unresolved.

To force a large number of Palestinians into Jordan today, and to perhaps give them Jordanian citizenship over time, would further fuel the argument over who is a Jordanian. Thus, the resolve not to admit more Palestinians in the country comes from two directions: an establishment that does not wish further dilution of the Jordanian identity and an official and public position that does not want a Palestinian state outside Palestinian soil, and certainly not in Jordan.

However, Jordan has accepted non-Palestinian refugees since 1990, including Iraqis after the first and second Gulf wars and Syrians after its civil war broke out in 2011. But these refugees largely either were Jordanian citizens or were expected to eventually return to their homelands, with no plans for naturalization. Palestinian refugees do not fit either category.

Jordan wants to affirm a distinct Jordanian identity on Jordanian soil, as well as help affirm a distinct Palestinian identity on Palestinian soil. This is why the decision not to admit Palestinians is different, difficult, and firm. Jordan is unlikely to succumb to pressure to admit Palestinians if the fighting increases in the West Bank. This position is supported by nearly all components of Jordanian society—East Jordanian or of Palestinian origin, in addition to the West Bank Palestinians, who wish to establish a state on their own soil. They seem to believe that Jordan admitting Palestinians would only serve Israel’s interest to empty as many Palestinians from their land as possible. The closing of Jordan’s border to Palestinians—while on the surface appearing to be insensitive to Palestinian suffering—enjoys wide domestic and Arab support. It is viewed in the region as an attempt to block Israel’s desire to get rid of its Palestinian majority “problem,” and thus as a nationalistic move. It is also a position supported by the Palestinians themselves, despite their current and potential suffering at the hands of the Israeli occupation. A redline with such wide domestic, Palestinian, and Arab support is unlikely to change, even if the Hamas war spreads. 

Source: Carnegie Endowment 

The government media office in Gaza said this evening, Tuesday, November 21, 2023, that the death toll in Gaza has exceeded 14,000  so far, including more than 5,000 children.

For the forty-sixth day in a row, the brutal Israeli war on the Gaza Strip continues, as does the war on hospitals, and the genocidal war escalates against thousands of our steadfast and patient Palestinian people and against safe homes.

In light of this brutal war, we would like to point out a set of important statistics:

The total number of massacres committed by the Israeli occupation army reached more than (1,354), and the number of missing persons reached more than (6,800), either under the rubble or with their bodies lying in the streets and roads, preventing anyone from reaching them, including more than (4,500) child and  women.

The number of dead reached more than (14,128), including more than (5,840) children and (3,920) women. This means that 69% of the dead were children and women.

The number of dead of medical personnel reached (205) doctors, nurses, and paramedics, (22) civil defense crews, and (62) journalists in an attempt to obscure the truth and assassinate the Palestinian narrative.

While the number of injured exceeded (33,000), more than 75% of whom were children and women.

The number of destroyed government headquarters reached (100) government headquarters, and (266) schools, including (66) schools that were out of service.

While the number of completely destroyed mosques reached (83) mosques, and the number of partially destroyed mosques reached (170) mosques, in addition to (3) churches being targeted.

As for residential units, the number of residential units that were subjected to total demolition reached (44,000) residential units, in addition to (230,000) residential units that were subjected to partial demolition. This means that more than 60% of the residential units in the Gaza Strip were affected by the aggression between total demolition and It is uninhabitable and partially demolished.

In light of the focus and targeting of the "Israeli" occupation army on hospitals in particular and the threat to medical staff, (26) hospitals and (55) health centers were out of service as a result of the Israeli aggression. The occupation also targeted (55) ambulances, while dozens of ambulances went out of service. Service due to running out of fuel.

As part of the series of war on hospitals, and in continuation of the Israeli occupation policy aimed at completely eliminating the health sector, it targeted and bombed Al Awda Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, which led to a number of dead and wounded inside the hospital, in addition to the occupation army continuing to besiege and bomb the hospital. The Indonesian hospital directly, which led to the rise and occurrence of dozens of dead and wounded, and there are still many martyrs inside the Indonesian hospital, and the occupation prevents them from burying them and covering their bodies in the dirt until now, while the Israeli army continues to occupy the Al-Shifa Medical Complex and transform it into a military barracks, a mass grave, and a headquarters for direct killing. .

▪️The government media office issued an important statement regarding the unprecedented aggravation and deterioration of the humanitarian situation, and the increasing disastrous and worse field situation in a way that has never happened in the Gaza Strip before, as markets and shops are suffering from a drought of various basic and food supplies, and this comes in conjunction with the complete cessation. To operate bakeries and the absence of hundreds of types of food from the markets.

In the face of these crimes and the crazy war on the Gaza Strip, we would like to emphasize the following:

1. We hold the “Israeli” occupation and the international community fully responsible for the ongoing crimes within the “Israeli” war on the Gaza Strip, and we call on the countries of the free world to put pressure to stop this war and these crimes that shame humanity.

2. We hold the international community and the Israeli occupation fully responsible for the deteriorating humanitarian situation and the drying up of foodstuffs from markets and shops in the Gaza Strip, and we call on the Arab and Islamic countries and the countries of the free world to stop the policy of starvation and thirst to which our Palestinian people are exposed in the Gaza Strip, and we demand the provision and entry of all Basic and food needs before a new humanitarian disaster occurs.

3. We hold the Israeli occupation and the international community fully responsible for occupying and sabotaging (Al-Shifa Medical Complex), and we also hold them responsible for bombing and targeting (Al-Awda Hospital) and bombing and besieging (Indonesian Hospital), and we call on the countries of the free world and all the various international organizations, bodies and institutions to liberate these hospitals From the grip of the Israeli occupation.

4. We call on the Arab and Islamic countries to work hard to open the Rafah crossing to bring in aid and medical supplies and bring fuel to hospitals to restart them immediately and urgently.

South Africa’s parliament passes a resolution that urges the government to shutter the embassy of Israel, which the resolution calls an “apartheid state.”

A majority of 248 members of the National Assembly vote in favor of the non-binding resolution titled “Closure of the Israel Embassy in South Africa and suspension of all diplomatic relations with Israel” by lawmaker Julius Malema of the EFF opposition party.

The ruling African National Congress voted in favor of the resolution. But 91 lawmakers from opposition parties voted against it.

That government is not legally obligated to act on the motion. The vote follows a significant deterioration in Israel’s bilateral relationship with South Africa, whose president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.” Pretoria is hosting a virtual meeting of BRICS — a group of major emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — aimed at drawing up a common response to the Israel-Hamas war.

AFP 

The spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qudra, announced today, Tuesday, that there are 400 wounded and their companions still inside the Indonesian hospital, in addition to 2,000 displaced persons and 200 medical staff.

Al-Qudra explained that “all the hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip are out of service, and we are coordinating with the United Nations to evacuate the besieged Indonesian hospital” from Israeli forces two days ago in the town of Jabalia (north).

He confirmed that the Israeli forces' targeting of the Indonesian hospital yesterday, Monday, led to the killing of 12 of the wounded, their companions, and medical staff, and the injury of dozens of others.

He added, "The Israeli occupation is trying to adopt criminal behavior in the Indonesian hospital, as it did in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex."

He pointed out that "a large number of displaced people fled from the Indonesian hospital on Monday, but Israeli forces targeted them, and their bodies are still lying on the ground in front of the hospital."

He continued: "Coordination was made with the Red Cross yesterday, Monday, and more than a hundred patients and wounded were evacuated from inside the hospital to hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip."

Al-Qudra stated, “Today, Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations are trying to establish mechanisms to transfer the remaining wounded inside the Indonesian hospital to hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip.”

He said: “The occupation wants to turn the Indonesian facility into a military barracks, conduct combing operations inside it, and commit war crimes and acts of sabotage inside the hospital, which was the backbone of the health service in the north.”

He pointed out that Israeli forces are also besieging the Noura Al-Kaabi Medical Center, which is the “only” dialysis center in the northern Gaza Strip.

Regarding the developments in Al-Shifa Medical Complex, west of Gaza City, Al-Qudra said, “There are currently 259 wounded people there, in addition to a number of companions, displaced persons, and medical teams.”

He added: "A UN delegation from the World Health Organization visited Al-Shifa Hospital during the past few days, and coordination was being made to remove those remaining in the hospital."

He continued: “So far, there is no news or any date for the release of those remaining in Al-Shifa Medical Complex.”

Al-Qudra called for speedy action to evacuate those remaining in the hospital, before “the Israeli army commits a new massacre against them.”

Regarding the conditions in hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip, Al-Qudra stated that they “cannot handle the large numbers of injured people, especially after the wounded were transferred from Al-Shifa and Indonesian hospitals to them.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza pointed out “the necessity of transporting those wounded in Israeli raids to receive treatment outside the Gaza Strip.”

For 46 days, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza, leaving more than 13,300 Palestinians dead, including more than 5,600 children and 3,550 women, as well as more than 31,000 injured, 75 percent of whom are children and women, according to the media office. Government in Gaza.

The eldest grandson of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas,” Jamal Muhammad Haniyeh, was killed on Tuesday in an occupation bombing of the Gaza Strip.

Haniyeh's granddaughter and about thirty of his nephews and first- and second-degree relatives were dead in the war on Gaza that broke out on the seventh of last October.

This came approximately 10 days after the death of Haniyeh's granddaughter, Rouaa Hammam Ismail Haniyeh, in the Shaheen family massacre in the Gaza Strip.

It is noteworthy that Ruaa is a student at the Faculty of Medicine at the Islamic University of Gaza, and the granddaughter of the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh.

Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh said today (Tuesday) that any attempts that would create conditions for the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank constitute a material breach of the peace agreement between Jordan and Israel, according to what was reported by the Arab World News Agency.

In a statement published by the Jordanian Prime Minister, Al-Khasawneh reiterated Jordan’s rejection of any such attempts, saying that they amount to “a declaration of war against us, as they constitute a material breach of the peace agreement.” This came during a meeting between the Jordanian Prime Minister and the Qatari Minister of International Cooperation, Lulwa Al Khater.

The day before yesterday, Jordanian King Abdullah II warned of the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, calling on the international community to stop this humanitarian disaster out of respect for international law and the Charter of the United Nations. He stressed that Israel's continuation of its hideous war on Gaza and its illegal violations in the West Bank and Jerusalem will lead to an explosion in the situation in the entire region. He reiterated the necessity of working seriously towards a political horizon for the Palestinian issue to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution, pointing to the role of the European Union in this regard.

Source: Alsharq Alawsat

Today, Tuesday, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir sharply criticized the prisoner exchange deal to be concluded with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), considering that it would bring disaster to Tel Aviv.

“I am very upset because they are talking about a deal that could bring us disaster,” said Ben Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party.

He continued that rumors say that the State of Israel will once again make a very big mistake in the "Shalit deal" method, referring to the exchange deal with Hamas that took place in 2011, and included more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit.

Ben Gvir added, "You remember that we released Shalit, and we released the leader of the Hamas movement in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and his friends, and we brought this problem to ourselves."

The Israeli army says that there are 239 prisoners in Gaza since last October 7, while the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, said that it and other Palestinian factions captured about 250 Israelis.

Ben Gvir continued that, unfortunately, Minister in the War Council Benny Gantz and “Minister Without Portfolio” Gadi Eisenkot are dragging the government into a bad area. It is noteworthy that Ben Gvir is not a member of the Israeli Military Ministerial Council.

Close deal

At dawn on Tuesday, the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed that reaching a truce agreement with Israel was imminent.

Haniyeh said in a statement, “The movement delivered its response to the brothers in Qatar and the mediators, and we are close to reaching a truce agreement,” without further details.

For his part, Hamas leader Izzat al-Rishq told Al Jazeera that the details of the agreement will be revealed in the coming hours, explaining that "the brothers in Qatar are the ones who will announce the details of the truce agreement."

On Sunday evening, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said that “the completion of the exchange deal between Israel and Hamas is imminent,” without mentioning a specific date.

Hamas is offering Tel Aviv to release a number of Israeli prisoners, including those with foreign nationalities, in exchange for a truce for several days, the entry of fuel and food into the Gaza Strip, and the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.

The Gaza war has confronted the Middle East and the world with an urgent and undeniable reality: the urgent establishment of a Palestinian state.

This matter, whether or not it occurs, entails results beyond regional borders that could redraw the entire global political landscape. Where no one expected, this file has directly weighed on the path of regional stability, international relations, and the dynamics and legitimacy of global leadership in ways we have not yet imagined.

The repeated rounds of violence in Gaza have always attracted international attention and intervention, but the current war has become a symbolic embodiment of all the consequences of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and has prompted, in an unprecedented way, to think about a radical solution to it, as a result of its potential to swallow all the foundations of stability in the entire Middle East. Therefore, if rational people in the region and in Israel were able to emerge from this bloody ordeal with a clear and quickly implemented agreement to establish a viable Palestinian state, three direct results would be achieved:

First, the establishment of a Palestinian state will open the door to a new era in Arab-Israeli relations, based on understandings and the peace path. It has become clear that all of Israel's military superiority does not replace the fact that normalizing relations between Israel and Arab countries is the only thing that can guarantee security and safety for all players, redefine regional alliances, and enhance the climate of cooperation. This paradigm shift is not limited only to diplomatic recognition, but includes a deeper reorganization of interests and the strengthening of political rationality in the Middle East, in a way that serves sustainable and productive stability.

Secondly, resolving the Gaza crisis through diplomatic channels, specifically through honest American leadership, would restore respect to the reputation and status of Western influence, especially American influence, in international affairs. A successful and just intervention in Gaza, leading to the formation of a Palestinian state, would strengthen conviction in the West's position as a trustworthy guardian of the leadership of the global order.

In light of the horrors that the world is witnessing in Gaza, including the unprecedented killing of civilians, the moral authority of the Western value system is eroding in a dramatic and dangerous manner, threatening the integrity of international law and international institutions, and turning all the constants of the global order into mere double standards devoid of any content.

Third, reaching a solution in Gaza that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state would strip Tehran of this pretext, which could lead to the destabilization of its regional influence. It is no secret that Iran has benefited greatly and for a long time from the Palestinian issue to advance its regional agenda, justifying its support for militias and political groups that adopt its political line. Iran will then have to look for another external agenda that it can use to divert attention from its internal failure, or this development will be an incentive for the escalation of moderate and sensible forces within the Iranian regime, who do not want to drown in the costs of foreign adventures at the expense of the advancement of the Iranian state and the interests of its people.

In this context, it was noteworthy that the Gaza war brought these debates back to the forefront, especially through exciting statements by former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in which he sharply criticized Iranian parties that wanted to push the country to enter the war.

Inaction or failure to seize this moment to create a long-awaited Palestinian state could have adverse and dangerous repercussions. 

Failure to establish a Palestinian state will inevitably lead to the erosion of the peace camp, with the dangers it entails for Israel and the region, and the further deterioration of Western moral authority, which means the liberation of rogue powers from the controls of the international system, and the increasing audacity of the Iranian rejectionist position, which destabilizes the security of the Middle East. Such a scenario would not only exacerbate instability in the region, but would also threaten the foundations of stability in the global order.

In fact, the opportunity to radically address the Palestinian-Israeli issue should be an impetus for the birth of bold and different leadership in both Israel and Palestine. The emergence of a post-Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli government, which potentially offers him a way out of his legal dilemmas so that he does not continue to invest in a crazy war for his own personal reasons, could provide the necessary political environment for progress. On the Palestinian front, the formation of a technocratic government with modern Palestinian leadership, which knows how the world works, and is able to overcome the current division between the Ramallah and Gaza groups, would pave the way for a viable path to establishing a state, by redefining the Palestinian national project. 

The current crisis in Gaza could be just another link in the chain of long-term conflict, and it could be turned into a decisive turning point that has the potential to change the regional and global landscape, through the creation of a Palestinian state.

It is time to stop looking at the Palestinian question as a moral or emotional question, and highlight it now as a strategic focal point for the security of the region and the world. It is an opportunity that holds the promise of redefining the Middle East system, its pillars of stability and security, and the meanings of dignity for its people. It is also possible to reaffirm the values that should govern international relations.

It is an opportunity that the world cannot ignore.

Source: Alsharq Alawsat

Israeli military pilot Nof Erez said that it is possible that Israeli forces implemented the “Hannibal Protocol” during their response to the attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7th.

Hannibal, a controversial military protocol attributed to the use of the Israeli army since its official adoption in 2006, allows the lives of captured soldiers to be risked, and it returned to the forefront again after Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip captured dozens of Israeli soldiers, including high-ranking military personnel, in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on last October.

In a statement to the Haaretz newspaper on Tuesday, the pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Nof Erez, indicated the possibility of the Israeli army that intervened to deal with the Hamas attack implementing the Hannibal Protocol, which the occupation army uses to prevent the capture of its soldiers, even if it leads to their killing.

Erez said, "It is not known whether the warplanes and drones opened fire on the hostages when they responded to the attack launched by Hamas."

He added, "It appears that the Hannibal Protocol was implemented at some point on that day, because when a hostage situation was discovered, this required Hannibal, knowing that the Hannibal maneuvers that we conducted over the past 20 years were limited to one vehicle carrying hostages. As for what we saw in the  Al-Aqsa 'Flood' is considered a large-scale Hannibal.

According to news reported by the Israeli media, Lieutenant Colonel Erez was dismissed on October 31, after criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli army announced that Erez was dismissed after he expressed his opinion on political issues while on active duty.

A report from the Haaretz newspaper showed, on Saturday, that an Israeli military helicopter opened fire on Israelis participating in a party organized near Kibbutz Ra'im in the border of the Gaza Strip on the 7th of last October.

"Haaretz" reported that the security establishment's assessments showed that an Israeli army combat helicopter arrived at the concert venue, opened fire on the perpetrators of the attacks there, and apparently also wounded some of the festival's participants (referring to the Israelis). It explained that the security assessment was based on investigations that conducted by Israeli police with Hamas militants who were arrested by Israel.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the BRICS summit held online, today (Tuesday), that Russia calls for a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stressing that the countries of the region and the member states of the BRICS group can participate in efforts to reach a settlement.

Putin added that humanitarian truces are a correct step towards peace and that it is important not to drag other countries into the conflict.

Putin pointed out that the Middle East crisis was caused by the failure of American diplomacy in the region.

He added, "We call for the concerted efforts of the international community with the aim of calming the situation, achieving a ceasefire, and finding a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." The BRICS countries and countries in the region can play a major role in this regard.”

Putin has repeatedly attacked American policy in previous statements, urging Israel to exercise restraint and expressing his sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians.

He warned Israel last month against imposing a blockade on Gaza in the same way that Nazi Germany besieged Leningrad during World War II, saying that a ground attack there would lead to the killing of an “absolutely unacceptable” number of civilians.

Putin said on Tuesday that the death of Palestinian children in large numbers is “horrific,” adding that seeing children undergoing operations without anesthesia “raises special feelings.”

He added, "Due to the violation of United Nations resolutions, which clearly stipulate the establishment of two independent and sovereign states, Israel and Palestine, to achieve peaceful coexistence between them, more than one generation of Palestinians has grown up in an atmosphere of injustice towards their people. The Israelis cannot fully guarantee security for their state" .

Source: Alsharq Alawsat

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met in Moscow on Tuesday with the ministerial committee assigned by the Arab-Islamic Summit of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip.

The committee stressed the need to stop the war on the Gaza Strip and put an end to Israeli violations of international law, calling on the Security Council to assume its responsibility in stopping attacks on the Palestinians, stressing that this is a priority for all Arab and Islamic countries.

The members of the committee pointed out the importance of immediately lifting the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, releasing prisoners and hostages, and reactivating a serious and just peace process that enjoys the support of international legitimacy authorities.

The members of the Ministerial Committee called on the international community to fulfill its responsibility by rejecting all forms of selectivity in applying international legal and moral standards, and turning a blind eye to the heinous crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces against defenseless Palestinian civilians, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

They pointed out that the Israeli occupation’s continued violation of the rules of international law and non-compliance with international legitimacy resolutions, the latest of which was the Security Council resolution last week, weakens the legitimacy of the international system, the credibility of its defenders, and its ability to maintain regional peace, security and stability in the future, and also fuels the motives of extremism and violence.

The members of the Ministerial Committee stressed the importance of immediately allowing the delivery of humanitarian and food aid, water, fuel, and electricity to Gaza, which is a moral and legal responsibility for the entire international community, noting that depriving the people of Gaza of the basic requirements of life is a clear violation of international humanitarian law, especially the Convention. Fourth Geneva, transgressing all humanitarian values and principles.

The meeting was attended by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki, and Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Hussein Ibrahim Taha.

Lavrov said in his speech that Russia “shares the assessments of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation regarding the need for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip,” adding that “Russia is against terrorism in all its forms, and it must be combated without violating international humanitarian law.”

Lavrov stressed that "the volume of humanitarian aid entering Gaza is insufficient, and now the main priority is to stop hostilities, release the hostages, and resolve humanitarian issues," saying that Russia "calls for the start of preparations to resume the negotiation process to establish a Palestinian state at the present time."

Regarding the Arab role, the Russian minister said, “The Quartet of mediators in the Middle East did not include representatives from the Arab world, so it failed in its functions, as regional countries should also be represented in the mechanism for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

Pointing out that the United Nations neglected to involve Arab countries in peace efforts, he expressed his country's readiness to establish a mechanism to secure the conditions for a permanent solution in accordance with the two-state solution.

Lavrov stressed that "it is necessary to return to the Arab Peace Initiative and achieve the goal of establishing a Palestinian state according to a diplomatic mechanism in which the countries of the region participate."

In turn, Shukri considered that “the continuous bombing of the displaced in the southern Gaza Strip has a clear goal, which is to force the residents of the Strip to leave it,” stressing that Egypt “clearly announced its rejection of any attempt to displace the Palestinians.”

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced that Egypt "Prepared a new draft resolution to be presented to the Security Council on behalf of the Arab and Islamic groups, to address the existing imbalance in the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza."

Egyptian Minister Sameh Shoukry said during the meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister: “We appreciate the support that Russia has provided to the Palestinian cause, and we encourage you to do more in the Security Council, to reach a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.”

Shukri asked: “How many Palestinian civilian casualties must fall in order for Israel’s goal in this war to be achieved?”

For his part, the Saudi Foreign Minister stressed the necessity of a ceasefire in Gaza, lifting the siege, releasing prisoners, and delivering aid, considering that the crimes committed against the Palestinian people angered the Arab and Islamic worlds.

He said: "It is necessary to activate the international accountability mechanism because Israel's crimes undermine the global order and threaten more violence."

Yesterday, Monday, the ministerial committee assigned by the Arab Islamic Summit, concerned with developing an international move to stop the war on Gaza, began a global tour to formulate an international position, and its first stop was China.

Source: Alaraby Aljadeed

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that the bloc is facing increasing feelings of hostility throughout the Islamic world, and even outside it, due to accusations of bias toward Israel and double standards regarding the war on Gaza.

Borrell said he feared such bitterness would undermine diplomatic support for Ukraine in the global South, and weaken the EU's ability to insist on human rights clauses in international agreements.

He added that the European Union must show "more compassion" regarding the loss of life suffered by Palestinian civilians in the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

Borrell's statements came in interviews with Reuters during a five-day tour in the Middle East, in which he visited Israel and several Arab countries.

During the tour, which he concluded yesterday evening, Monday, Borrell heard complaints from Arab leaders and Palestinian civil society activists that the European Union, which includes 27 countries, does not deal with Israel’s war on Gaza with the same standards that it applies to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“They have all already criticized the European Union’s position and described it as biased,” Borrell said.

Waving his mobile phone, he said that he had already received messages from some ministers indicating that they would not support Ukraine the next time there was a vote at the United Nations.

He added: "If things continue like this for a few weeks, hostility towards the Europeans will increase."

In response to the criticism, Borrell stressed that human lives have the same value in all places, and that the European Union unanimously urged immediate humanitarian truces to deliver aid to the Palestinians in Gaza, and quadrupled its humanitarian aid to the Strip.

But Arab leaders want an immediate halt to Israeli bombing that has killed at least 13,300 Palestinians, including at least 5,600 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Arab leaders criticized the European Union and the United States for not condemning Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza, in contrast to the West's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Strong differences in European views

The European Union tasked Borrell, in his capacity as foreign policy chief, with formulating common positions among its member states.

The European Union, whose countries are located in the vicinity of the Middle East and are home to a large number of Jews and Muslims, has a major role to play in the recent crisis. Although it is not at the same level as the United States, the bloc enjoys diplomatic weight in the region, being - in particular - the largest donor of aid to the Palestinians.

But the bloc finds it difficult to take a unified position, except to condemn the Hamas attack. His efforts were largely limited to supporting Israel's right to defend itself within the framework of international law and calling for truces in the fighting.

At the same time, individual member states, such as Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary, affirmed their strong support for Israel, while others, such as Ireland, Belgium and Spain, criticized Israel's military action.

France called for a humanitarian truce that would pave the way for a ceasefire.

Borrell, a veteran Spanish socialist politician, announced last month that some of Israel's actions contradict international law, alarming some European Union countries.

The European official said that the European Union must also make more efforts to show that it also cares about the lives of the Palestinians, and this may be achieved by issuing stronger calls for the delivery of aid to Gaza, and renewing the effort to establish a Palestinian state, within the framework of the so-called “two-state solution.”

Source: Alaraby Aljadeed + (Reuters)

Speech by President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping at the virtual extraordinary summit of BRICS leaders on the Palestinian issue.

Your Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa,

Colleagues:

This summit is considered the first meeting between the leaders of the BRICS countries after expanding its membership. At the outset, I would like to extend a welcome to the leaders of the new BRICS member states, and to thank President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Government of South Africa for the efforts made in organizing this meeting. In light of the current situation, the voice calling for justice and peace made by the BRICS countries on the Palestinian issue is very necessary and timely.

The Chinese side expresses its deep concern over the conflict in the Gaza Strip that lasted for more than a month, the resulting large number of deaths and injuries among civilians and the humanitarian catastrophe, and its trend towards expansion and extension.

The top priority now is: First, the parties to the conflict must cease fire and end the fighting immediately, stop all acts of violence and attacks against civilians, and release detained civilians, to avoid greater human losses.

Secondly, it is required to ensure the safety and smooth flow of humanitarian relief corridors, provide more humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip, and stop collective punishment against them such as forced displacement and cutting off water, electricity and fuel supplies.

Third, the international community must take practical measures to prevent the expansion of the conflict and its impact on stability in the entire Middle East region. The Chinese side supports the resolution on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that was adopted at the emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly on October 27. All parties must implement the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution No. 2712, which was adopted under the presidency of China in its capacity as rotating president of the Council, on the ground.

The root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli situation today is the long-standing neglect of the rights of the Palestinian people to establish their state, to remain in their land, and to return. I have emphasized several times that the main way out to break the spiral of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies in implementing the “two-state solution,” restoring legitimate Palestinian national rights, and establishing an independent State of Palestine.

Lasting peace and stability in the Middle East cannot be achieved without a just solution to the Palestinian issue. The Chinese side calls for convening a more credible international peace conference as soon as possible to develop an international consensus on peace and advance a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue at an early date.

The Chinese side has made commendable efforts to advance peace negotiations, ceasefire and prevent fighting since the outbreak of this round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In order to alleviate the humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, China has provided urgent humanitarian aid worth two million US dollars through the Palestinian National Authority and United Nations agencies, in addition to urgent humanitarian supplies worth 15 million Chinese yuan, including food and medicine, to the Gaza Strip via Egypt. China will continue to provide material assistance according to the needs of the residents of the Gaza Strip. China, in its capacity as rotating president of the UN Security Council for the current month, pushed the Council to adopt the resolution calling for the extension of the humanitarian truce, the duration of humanitarian corridors, the protection of civilians, and the implementation of humanitarian relief operations.

Colleagues!

The BRICS cooperation mechanism is an important platform for enhancing solidarity and cooperation between emerging markets and developing countries and preserving their common interests. Today, we are coordinating positions and taking steps on the Palestinian issue, and this would constitute a good beginning for “cooperation within the framework of the BRICS” after expanding its membership. The Chinese side commends the important contributions made by South Africa, as the rotating chair of BRICS this year, to advance the development of the BRICS issue. Russia will assume the rotating presidency next year, and the Chinese side is keen to work together with other members to support the work of the Russian side, creating a new era for BRICS cooperation.

Thank you all!

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said, "If any scenario occurs targeting the displacement of Palestinians to Egyptian territory, there will be a decisive response in accordance with international law."

He continued by saying during the House of Representatives session today: “If any scenario occurs targeting the displacement of Palestinians to Egyptian lands, there will be a decisive response,” adding: “Egypt’s position is decisive regarding respecting the peace treaty and adhering to its texts, but we look forward to a commitment from the Israeli side as well, especially with regard to displacement of Gaza Strip.

The Prime Minister stressed that any forced displacement of the people of the Gaza Strip represents a clear threat to the Egyptian state.

Madbouly stressed that Egypt adheres to its rejection of the displacement of the people of Palestine, noting that all officials in Egypt sent messages to all officials at the international level and a warning message against escalation in Palestine.

He pointed out that the displacement of the people of Palestine means liquidating the Palestinian cause, which is completely unacceptable, stressing that Egypt adheres to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

He continued: "I followed with interest all the briefing requests submitted by the representatives regarding the measures and actions taken by the Egyptian state to prevent the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which reflect an accurate and clear understanding of the challenges Egypt faces and the political and economic pressures it is exposed to."

The Prime Minister said: “A number of representatives expected pressure in the coming period due to the Egyptian position, but the pressure has been present for some time, and there are attempts to undermine countries that refuse to impose agendas on them, through weak points.”

He added: Egypt is and will continue to be exposed to significant pressures. The state is aware of these challenges, and that is why there have been persistent attempts from the first moment President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi assumed responsibility to accelerate the implementation of many national projects.

Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly revealed that more than 11,000 tons of Egyptian aid had been directed to the Palestinians until November 19, including food, medicine, tents, fuel, and aid to alleviate the suffering of our brother and sisters in Gaza.

Madbouly said that this number comes despite the Egyptian economic crisis, and represents 4 times the volume of aid sent from 30 countries to the Palestinian people, which swallowed about 3 thousand tons from all countries of the world, noting that the beginning of this week witnessed the sending of the last convoy, which he was honored to launch to Gaza and included 200 vehicles and trucks to contain 2,500 tons of aid at once.

Source: Sama News

Today, Tuesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called for an end to the export of weapons and ammunition to Israel.

This came in a speech during the extraordinary virtual meeting of the leaders of the BRICS group and the leaders of the countries invited to join regarding the deteriorating situation in Gaza. The Crown Prince said: “All countries must stop exporting weapons and ammunition to Israel.”

He added, "The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza continues to worsen day after day, and decisive solutions must be developed for it."

At a time when the war and Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip have continued for 46 days, the talks to conclude a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and the Hamas movement have reached a final stage and are at the closest point to reaching an agreement.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak admitted that Israel was the one that built the shelters and dug the tunnels under Al-Shifa Hospital 40 or 50 years ago, in an interview on the American CNN channel.

This came in response to the questions of broadcaster Christiane Amanpour, who asked him about Israel's claims that there is a headquarters for the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) under Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

Barak answered these questions by saying that it has been known for many years that there are shelters built by Israeli contractors under Al-Shifa Hospital and used as a headquarters for Hamas, and the intersection of several tunnels is part of this system, as he put it.

In response to Barak, Amanpour said: Are you saying that this place was built by Israeli engineers? Did I make a mistake?

Barak replied, "We helped build these shelters probably 40 or 50 years ago (during the periods of occupation control over the former Gaza Strip), to provide more space for hospital operations within the limited area of the university campus."

The World Health Organization announced yesterday, Monday, that its teams had only seen civilians in Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip, and that there was no evidence that it was used as a military headquarters by the Hamas movement.

For its part, Hamas said that the Israeli occupation army's statements about using the Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza to detain Israeli prisoners are misleading and false.

The movement added in a statement the day before yesterday, Sunday, in response to the Israeli army spokesman, that these statements aim to cover up the security and military failure of the occupation army.

Siege and storming

At dawn last Wednesday, the Israeli army stormed the Al-Shifa Medical Complex after besieging it for days, as it contains thousands of civilians who were displaced from their homes and hundreds of wounded as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip.

For 46 days, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that has left more than 13,300 martyrs - including more than 5,600 children and 3,550 women - as well as more than 31,000 injured, 75% of whom are children and women, according to the government information office in Gaza.

Source: Anadolu Agency