How have post-Oct. 7 events affected the chances of Palestinian statehood?

Special How have post-Oct. 7 events affected the chances of Palestinian statehood?
The West Bank separation wall is viewed by Palestinians as undermining the two-state solution. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 29 July 2024
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How have post-Oct. 7 events affected the chances of Palestinian statehood?

How have post-Oct. 7 events affected the chances of Palestinian statehood?
  • Since the attack triggered the war in Gaza, there has been unprecedented pressure on Israel to resolve the decades-old dispute
  • But experts say reviving the two-state solution would require a significant change of government and attitudes among the Israeli people

LONDON: On Oct. 6 last year, the prospect of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via the two-state solution seemed as far from becoming a reality as ever. Yet in the wake of the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, and Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, new life has been breathed into the concept.

Indeed, such has been the scale of public outcry at the suffering and destruction meted out on the people of Gaza and the West Bank since the conflict began that calls to revive the peace process and establish an independent Palestinian state appear to have grown louder.

“In my view the likelihood of Palestinian statehood has increased,” Itamar Rabinovich, president of the Israel Institute and Israel’s ambassador to the US from 1993 to 1996, told Arab News. “It is going to take time. But the issue of a two-state solution will have to be put back on the table.”




This photo taken on January 25, 2004, shows then Tel Aviv University President Itamar Rabinovich (L) and Jordanian Foreign Affairs minister Marwan Jamil Muasher at the "Breaking the Vicious Circle of the Arab-Israeli Conflict" conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. (AFP file)

Israel’s far-right coalition government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has been resistant to the idea of a Palestinian state, doubling down on its strategy of containment. A change of government, however, could get the long-stalled peace process back on track.

“Probably as long as the Netanyahu government in its present composition is in power, this is not going to move,” said Rabinovich. “But hopefully this will change in the coming months and a new Israeli government, I think, is likely to take a different view of the matter.”

For Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at London’s Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, it is “very difficult to talk about anything positive against the backdrop of destruction and loss of life in Gaza.




Palestinians check the destruction after an Israeli strike on a building next to a school sheltering displaced people, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 4, 2024. (AFP)

“But one silver lining has been the redirection of attention to the issue of Palestinian statehood, which over the past few years has been subject to a consensus almost of silence among policymakers, diplomats and observers,” he told Arab News.

“The Abraham Accords, for example, while generally a positive development for the region in terms of Israel’s relations with Arab countries, pushed the Palestinian claim for self-determination onto the backburner.”

Since Oct. 7, international pressure has been building on Israel — most dramatically in the May ruling by the International Court of Justice that Israel should halt its Rafah offensive, and the decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.




Judges of the International Court of Justice attend a hearing in The Hague, Netherlands, (ICJ) on May 17, 2024, on South Africa’s request to order a stop to the Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah. (AFP/File)

But there has also been unprecedented pressure, not only for a political “day after” solution to the war in Gaza, but also to a conflict that has raged for decades and destabilized the entire region.

On May 28, three European countries — Spain, Norway and Ireland — joined the 140 nations that have recognized Palestine as a sovereign state since the declaration of statehood by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1988.

In a statement, Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, spoke for all three nations when he said that, in the midst of the war, “we must keep alive the only alternative that offers a political solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike: Two states, living side by side, in peace and security.”

Since the start of the war in Gaza, nine states have recognized Palestinian statehood.

Opinion

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

On April 18, the Palestinian Authority’s latest bid to convert its non-member observer status into full UN membership was supported by 12 votes, but vetoed by the US.

However, US deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the UN Security Council the veto “does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties.”

Less than a month later, on May 10, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution by 143 votes to nine that upgraded the rights of the state of Palestine as an observer body, and urged the Security Council to “consider favorably” its elevation to full membership.




The results of a vote on a resolution for the UN Security Council to reconsider and support the full membership of Palestine into the United Nations is displayed during a special session of the UN General Assembly, at UN headquarters in New York City on May 10, 2024. (AFP)

Speaking in support of the resolution, Saudi Arabia’s UN ambassador, Abdulaziz Al-Wasil, said it sought “to implement the will of the international community and contribute to building true peace in the Middle East based on the two-state solution.”

It was, he added, “high time for the international community to re-establish the truth because the world can no longer ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people that has lasted for decades.” 

Sir John Jenkins, a former British consul-general in Jerusalem and ambassador to both Saudi Arabia and Iraq, agrees that Palestinian statehood is the only long-term solution for Israel’s security.

However, he believes achieving this will require a significant change of government, and a massive change of heart among the Israeli people.

“Israeli opinion has been shifting steadily to the right since the 1990s,” Jenkins told Arab News. “Initially that was because of the large influx of Soviet Jews into Israel, who tended to be extremely right-wing, and all voted for Likud. And then you had the Second Intifada, which was a real blow to the peace camp in Israel.”

Since October, “all the Israelis I have spoken to have said the same thing, that this was a profound trauma that has significantly shifted public opinion in Israel away from any conception of a Palestinian state.”

That being said, “although Israel has won a lot of battles since 1982, they have not won the war, and they can’t win the war. They cannot defeat all their enemies, and in the long run the answer to this is a Palestinian state, because that’s the way in which you neutralize the opposition.”

Any calculations about the possibility of progress toward a two-state solution must now also factor in recent political developments in America, where the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the Democratic ticket will have one of two likely consequences.

The re-election of Donald Trump, probably America’s most pro-Israel president to date, would likely impede progress on Palestinian statehood.




Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest near the US Capitol before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress on July 24, 2024, in Washington, DC. (AFP)

But although Trump saw a spike in his support following the failed assassination attempt on July 13, polls show his lead over likely Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is slightly less than his already marginal lead over Biden. 

As vice president, Harris has been a more vocal critic of events in Gaza than Biden.

In March during a meeting with Benny Gantz, then still a member of Israel’s war cabinet, she called for a pause in the fighting and “expressed her deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.”

In a speech earlier that same month, she condemned the “humanitarian catastrophe” unfolding in Gaza, saying “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed … Our hearts break for the victims of that horrific tragedy.”




US Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet in Washington on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

As vice president, Harris has sat in on at least 20 calls between Biden and the Israeli prime minister and, according to sources quoted in The New York Times, has “emerged as one of the leading voices for Palestinians in closed-door meetings.”

During a meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday she was expected to say “it is time for the war to end in a way where Israel is secure, all hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can enjoy their right to dignity, freedom and self-determination.”

Harris knows she will not move the dial on Palestinian statehood among Republican voters, whose representatives gave Netanyahu such a warm welcome on Wednesday, but she will have a keen eye on swing states such as Michigan, where Biden has been losing support among Arab communities over his stance on Gaza.

It was telling that she chose not to be present for Netanyahu’s speech to the joint session of Congress on Wednesday, but she will have noted the subdued mood among those Democrats who did not boycott the address, and the angry demonstrations outside the US Capitol, where thousands branded the Israeli leader a war criminal.

The right-wing in Israel, and its supporters in the US, are as deeply entrenched ideologically as its liberal critics.

Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, who supervised US policy in the Middle East during the presidency of George W. Bush, delivered a scathing denunciation of what he called the “two-state delusion” in an article published in Tablet, the New York-based Jewish magazine, in February.

The growing call in the West for a two-state solution was “mostly a magical incantation,” Abrams wrote, and political pressure was growing “to skip niceties like negotiations and move quickly to implement the ‘two-state solution.’”

Abrams’ views reflect those of many on Israel’s right, and as such may portend an impending internal struggle over the issue of Palestinian statehood.

Creating a Palestinian state, he concluded, “will not end the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ because it will not end the Palestinian and now Iranian dream of eliminating the State of Israel. On the contrary, it can be a launching pad for new attacks on Israel and will certainly be viewed that way by the Jewish state’s most dedicated enemies.”




Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest in front of the White House to denounce US President Joe Biden meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, DC, on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

Abrams told Arab News he believed that “the insistence on one sole outcome, the ‘two-state solution,’ has made it nearly impossible for people to think sensibly and creatively about more logical alternatives that are safer and more realistic.”

One such alternative would be partition, similar to the proposal by the Peel Commission in 1937. But instead of being an independent, sovereign state “it seems to me that the Palestinian entity should be part of a confederation, perhaps, and most logically, with Jordan. The model of Kurdistan is worth exploring.”

In an interview with Politico in January, Netanyahu’s predecessor Ehud Omert said that despite the widespread revulsion in Israel at Hamas’ actions on and after Oct. 7, there remained only one feasible route to peace — with or without the support of the Israeli electorate or its right wing.

“It isn’t fashionable to trust Palestinians, any Palestinians,” he said. “This is the time when you’re meant to hate them. But … When I argue with people, I say, ‘What is the solution? What do you think can be done? Do you think that we can continue to control 4.5 million people without rights, with unlimited occupation, forever?’ Then they, of course, don’t have an answer.”




While Israeli settlements have continued to spring up in Palestinian territories in the West Bank (left), many Palestinian homes, such as these ones in Hebron, are being demolished by Israeli authorities. (AFP)

It was not, he insisted, a question of convincing the Israeli people to accept a two-state solution. “You just have to do it,” he said. “This is an act of leadership. This is what we’re missing now.”

On July 18, just days before Netanyahu left for Washington, the Israeli parliament voted by 68 to nine for a resolution, co-sponsored by an alliance of right-wing parties, rejecting the establishment of a Palestine state “at this time.”

As Olmert said in January, “the two-state solution was never a popular idea for a majority of Israelis.” But, he added, “I’ve learned in my political career that reality is created sometimes by the sheer determination and forceful decisions made by leaders. What’s popular, what isn’t popular, doesn’t really matter.

“Had we sealed a deal in the past, the majority would have gone along.”

But Rabinovich warns that the growth in size, power and influence of Israel’s settler movement, endorsed and encouraged by members of the current government, has created the potential for a dangerous confrontation in Israeli society should any Israeli leader try to emulate Olmert’s 2008 plan, under which Israel would have evacuated the settlements in 94 percent of the West Bank, resettling the 40,000 occupants in the remaining 6 percent annexed to Israel.

The plan would have increased territorial contiguity for a future Palestinian state, but “unfortunately,” said Rabinovich, it was rejected by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.




Palestinians look at burnt out vehicles in a car park following an attack by Israeli settlers in the town of Burqah, east of the West Bank city of Ramallah, on June 7, 2024. (AFP)

Such a scheme “would be much more difficult now, with a large number of scattered, illegal settlements, which the present Israeli government refuses to call illegal, but which are.”

Such a compromise, he said, “is still feasible. But it will take a very determined Israeli prime minister and could very well cause even a civil war in Israel, because the settlers and the right wing could fight violently against this.”

There is one thing on which many commentators agree. There can be no progress toward a two-state solution until Netanyahu is gone — and he will last only as long as the war in Gaza lasts.

“This is probably the end of his government,” said Rabinovich, “and one reason he continues the fighting is because he doesn’t want to get to that point.

“But when the war is over, the demands for a serious commission of inquiry and demonstrations will intensify, and I think political developments in Israel will be expedited.”
 

 


Kingdom sends aircraft loaded with food, medical supplies to Lebanon

Kingdom sends aircraft loaded with food, medical supplies to Lebanon
Updated 3 sec ago
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Kingdom sends aircraft loaded with food, medical supplies to Lebanon

Kingdom sends aircraft loaded with food, medical supplies to Lebanon
  • Saudi aid agency KSrelief has transported hundreds of tonnes of aid to region since October

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia sent its 24th relief plane to Lebanon on Tuesday with humanitarian supplies including food and medical aid.

The conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah has intensified of late, forcing thousands of Lebanese to flee their villages and neighborhoods while under fire in southern Lebanon and the country’s capital, Beirut.

Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent aid supplies to Lebanon to help those displaced.

The aid plane flying the latest mission took off from King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh and headed to Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

A statement from the Saudi aid agency KSrelief said the aid deliveries showed that the Kingdom was “standing with needy and affected countries … in the face of crises and difficulties.”

KSrelief launched an initiative in October to transport hundreds of tonnes of medical supplies and food aid to Lebanon.


Childhood cancer patients in Lebanon must battle disease while under fire

Doctor Dolly Noun, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist, checks Carol Zeghayer, 9, a girl who suffers from leukaemia ahead of
Doctor Dolly Noun, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist, checks Carol Zeghayer, 9, a girl who suffers from leukaemia ahead of
Updated 9 min 8 sec ago
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Childhood cancer patients in Lebanon must battle disease while under fire

Doctor Dolly Noun, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist, checks Carol Zeghayer, 9, a girl who suffers from leukaemia ahead of
  • More than war, parents fear that their children will miss life saving chemotherapy treatment
  • Among the tens of thousands fleeing their homes among them are families with children battling cancer

BEIRUT: Carol Zeghayer gripped her IV as she hurried down the brightly lit hallway of Beirut’s children’s cancer center. The 9-year-old’s face brightened when she spotted her playmates from the oncology ward.
Diagnosed with cancer just months before the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel erupted in October 2023, Carol relies on weekly trips to the center in the Lebanese capital for treatment.
But what used to be a 90-minute drive, now takes up to three hours on a mountainous road to skirt the heavy bombardment in south Lebanon, but still not without danger from Israeli airstrikes. The family is just one among many across Lebanon now grappling with the hardships of both illness and war.
“She’s just a child. When they strike, she asks me, ‘Mama, was that far?’” said her mother, Sindus Hamra.
The family lives in Hasbaya, a province in southeastern Lebanon where the rumble of Israeli airstrikes has become part of daily life. Just 15 minutes away from their home, in the front-line town of Khiam, Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters clash amidst relentless bombardments.
On the morning of a recent trip to Beirut for her treatment, the family heard a rocket roar and its deafening impact as they left their home. Israeli airstrikes have also hit vehicles along the Damascus-Beirut highway, which Carol and her mother have to cross.
The bombardment hasn’t let up even as hopes grew in recent days that a ceasefire might soon be agreed.
More than war, Hamra fears that Carol will miss chemotherapy.
“Her situation is very tricky — her cancer can spread to her head,” Hamra said, her eyes filling with tears. Her daughter, diagnosed first with cancer of the lymph nodes and later leukemia, has completed a third of her treatment, with many months still ahead.
While Carol’s family remains in their home, many in Lebanon have been displaced by an intensified Israeli bombardment that began in late September. Tens of thousands fled their homes in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs — among them were families with children battling cancer.
The Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon quickly identified each patient’s location to ensure treatments remained uninterrupted, sometimes facilitating them at hospitals closer to the families’ new locations, said Zeina El Chami, the center’s fundraising and events executive.
During the first days of the escalation, the center admitted some patients for emergency care and kept them there as it was unsafe to send them home, said Dolly Noun, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist.
“They had no place to go,” she added. “We’ve had patients getting admitted for panic attacks. It has not been easy.”
The war has not only deepened the struggles of young patients.
“Many physicians have had to relocate,” Noun said. “I know physicians, who work here, who haven’t seen their parents in like six weeks because the roads are very dangerous.”
Since 2019, Lebanon has been battered by cascading crises — economic collapse, the devastating Beirut port explosion in 2020, and now a relentless war — leaving institutions like the cancer center struggling to secure the funds needed to save lives.
“Cancer waits for no one,” Chami said. The crises have affected the center’s ability to hold fundraising events in recent years, leaving it in urgent need of donations, she added.
The facility is currently treating more than 400 patients aged from few days to 18 years old, Chami said. It treats around 60 percent of children with cancer in Lebanon.
For Carol, the war is sometimes a topic of conversation with her friends at the cancer center. Her mother hears her recount hearing the booms and how the house shook.
For others, the moments with their friends in the center’s playroom provide a brief escape from the grim reality outside.
Eight-year-old Mohammad Mousawi darts around the playroom, giggling as he hides objects and books for his playmate to find. Too absorbed by the game, he barely answers questions, before the nurse calls him for his weekly chemotherapy treatment.
His family lived in Ghobeiry, a neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Their house was marked for destruction in an Israeli evacuation warning weeks ago, his mother said.
“But till now, they haven’t struck it,” said his mother, Suzan Mousawi. “They have hit (buildings) around it — two behind it and two in front of it.”
The family has relocated three times. They first moved to the mountains, but the bitter cold weakened Mohammad’s already fragile immune system.
Now they’ve settled in Ain el-Rummaneh, not far from their home in the southern Beirut suburbs known as Dahiyeh, which has come under significant bombardment. As the Israeli military widened the radius of its bombardment, some buildings hit were less than 500 meters (yards) from their current home.
The Mousawis have lived their entire lives in Dahiyeh, Suzan Mousawi said, until the war uprooted them. Her parents’ home was bombed. “All our memories are gone,” she said.
Mohammad has 15 weeks of treatment left, and his family is praying it will be successful. But the war has stolen some of their dreams.
“When Mohammad fell ill, we bought a house,” she said. “It wasn’t big, but it was something. I bought him an electric scooter and set up a pool, telling myself we’d take him there once he finishes treatment.”
She fears the house, bought with every penny she had saved, could be lost at any moment.
For some families, this kind of conflict is not new. Asinat Al Lahham, a 9-year-old patient of the cancer center, is a refugee whose family fled Syria.
“We escaped one war to another,” Asinat’s mother, Fatima, added.
As her father, Aouni, drove home from her chemotherapy treatment weeks ago, an airstrike happened. He cranked up the music in the car, trying to drown out the deafening sound of the attack.
Asinat sat in the back seat, clutching her favorite toy. “I wanted to distract her, to make her hear less of it,” he said.
In the medical ward on a recent day, Asinat sat in a chair hooked to an IV drip, negotiating with her doctor. “Just two or three small pinches,” she pleaded, asking for flavoring for her instant noodles that she is not supposed to have.
“I don’t feel safe … nowhere is safe … not Lebanon, not Syria, not Palestine,” Asinat said. “The sonic booms are scary, but the noodles make it better,” she added with a mischievous grin.
The family has no choice but to stay in Lebanon. Returning to Syria, where their home is gone, would mean giving up Asinat’s treatment.
“We can’t leave here,” her mother said. “This war, her illness … it’s like there’s no escape.”


Why has Israel increased its attacks on Syria?

Why has Israel increased its attacks on Syria?
Updated 51 min 36 sec ago
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Why has Israel increased its attacks on Syria?

Why has Israel increased its attacks on Syria?
  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor has recorded at least 86 Israeli attacks, with 199 Iran-backed fighters, Syrian soldiers and 39 civilians killed
  • Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said Israel has mainly hit border crossings, Damascus apartments, and the positions of Iran-backed groups

BEIRUT: Last week Israel launched its deadliest strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria, killing more than 100 fighters in the latest escalation since two months of full-blown Israel-Hezbollah war spilled over.
What are the reasons for this escalation, and what exactly is Israel targeting in Lebanon’s neighbor Syria?
Israel intensified its strikes against Syria from September 26, days after launching an intense bombing campaign mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon.
Since then, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor has recorded at least 86 Israeli attacks, with 199 Iran-backed fighters, Syrian soldiers and 39 civilians killed.
On November 20, Israeli strikes on the city of Palmyra killed 106 Tehran-backed fighters, with one raid targeting a meeting of commanders.
It was the deadliest Israeli attack on Iran-backed groups since Syria’s war erupted in 2011, said the Britain-based Observatory which has a network of sources inside the country.
The casualties included 73 pro-Iran Syrian fighters, 11 of whom worked for Hezbollah which also lost four Lebanese members. The remaining 29 casualties were mostly from Iraq’s Al-Nujaba group.
On Monday, Israel struck again, this time at a crossing on the Syria-Lebanon border, the latest in a wave of attacks targeting such routes since September.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said Israel has mainly hit border crossings, Damascus apartments, and the positions of Iran-backed groups, including Hezbollah weapons and ammunition depots.
“Syria today has become a de facto part of Israel’s battlefield,” he said.
On November 19, Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh visited ally Tehran and condemned “more than 130” Israeli attacks on his country since the Gaza war started in October 2023.
These included an April 1 attack on an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus that killed seven Islamic Republic Guard Corps members including two generals, triggering Iran’s first ever attack on Israel.
Since 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups.
Israel rarely comments on such strikes, but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence there.
Israel’s military said Monday’s strikes targeted “smuggling routes to transfer weapons to” Hezbollah, and follow other operations against “Syrian regime smuggling routes” in recent weeks.
For Century Foundation analyst Sam Heller, “the deterrent balance that had existed between Hezbollah and Israel has broken down” since the Lebanon war.
“Israel is now bombing Lebanon at will, and additionally hitting what are purportedly Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria without fear of real reprisal” by the group.
“This all seems like an attempt by Israel to sustainably weaken Hezbollah,” as it pounds its “logistical lines via Syria and pushes for a resolution to the war that will prevent Hezbollah from resupplying and rebuilding,” Heller added.
Renad Mansour of Chatham House said Israel’s Syria strikes “targeted the financial and military supply chains that fuel the axis of resistance” — Iran-backed armed groups that include Hezbollah and Palestinian, Yemeni and Iraqi militants.
On Sunday, UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said it was “extremely critical” to end the Lebanon and Gaza fighting to avoid dragging Syria into a regional war.
Escalating Israeli attacks have added to the country’s woes after 13 years of conflict and successive economic crises compounded by Western sanctions.
Damascus has not responded to Israel’s attacks and has tried to distance itself from the Gaza and Lebanon wars.
“Any counterattack against Israel would invite massive retaliation against Syria’s leadership or essential infrastructure,” Heller said.
A source close to Hezbollah said “Syria’s role is not to attack Israel, but rather to serve... as a supply line from Iran and Iraq to Hezbollah.”
Tehran and Baghdad fear that Israeli strikes, which have already hit Yemen’s Houthi militants, could hit their territory even if a ceasefire is agreed, the source said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Last week, Israel called on the UN Security Council to pressure Iraq into halting attacks launched by Iran-backed groups from its soil.
Tehran-backed Iraqi factions have claimed near-daily drone attacks on Israel in solidarity with allies Hamas and Hezbollah. Most of the attacks were intercepted.
The Baghdad government, which is dominated by pro-Iran parties, has accused Israel of trying to legitimize attacking Iraq, saying it was already taking measures to prevent attacks on Israel launched from its territory.
For more than a year, “Iraq has managed to stay relatively insulated from this wider regional war,” Mansour told AFP, adding that Iran and the United States also pushed for this.
But “in this time of transition between US President (Joe) Biden and (Donald) Trump, the Iraqi government is concerned that (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu has even more of a free hand to go after all the axis of resistance,” he said.


UK campaigners file emergency injunction over F-35 exports to Israel

UK campaigners file emergency injunction over F-35 exports to Israel
Updated 26 November 2024
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UK campaigners file emergency injunction over F-35 exports to Israel

UK campaigners file emergency injunction over F-35 exports to Israel
  • Move follows ICC issuing of warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant
  • ‘UK is now arming suspected war criminals,’ says Global Legal Action Network lawyer

LONDON: Campaigners in the UK seeking to block the sale of F-35 parts to Israel are applying for an emergency high court injunction after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The government has until Friday to file a defense against the campaigners from Global Legal Action Network and Al-Haq.

It is “unconscionable” that British manufacturers of F-35 parts continue to sell weapons systems that are used to kill Palestinians in Gaza, campaigners said.

On Nov. 18 at a high court hearing, the government admitted that potential damage to the UK-US relationship played a role in the continuation of exports.

In earlier hearings, ministers, some of whom have admitted that Israel is in breach of international law, were asked about the rationale for continuing exports.

The court was set to hear the case again in January next year.

Government ministers have said that F-35 parts enter a general export pool and that it is impossible to determine the destination of each part.

The Labour government reversed a decision by the former Conservative government to allow some arms export licenses to Israel to remain in place, finding a risk that the exports could be used to breach international humanitarian law.

GLAN lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe said: “It is unconscionable that the UK continues to allow British-made components for F-35s to be used in Israel’s extermination campaign against Palestinians.

“As of Thursday, the UK is now arming suspected war criminals who have been indicted by the world’s preeminent criminal court.

“For 13 months, GLAN and Al-Haq have argued that weapons sales to Israel are unlawful. When will it be enough? Does the UK government have any red lines?”

The emergency injunction follows the ICC’s issuing of arrest warrants for Netanyahu; former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant; and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.

The Israeli leader condemned the court’s decision as “antisemitic.”

GLAN and Al-Haq’s injunction is a sign of the impact caused by the ICC warrants.

Al-Haq spokesperson Zainah El-Haroun said: “The latest arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity add to the insurmountable evidence that British weapons, particularly F-35 components, are being used to commit international crimes, including genocide.”


Militia detains 300 migrants in the desert in Libya’s effort to contain sea crossings

Militia detains 300 migrants in the desert in Libya’s effort to contain sea crossings
Updated 26 November 2024
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Militia detains 300 migrants in the desert in Libya’s effort to contain sea crossings

Militia detains 300 migrants in the desert in Libya’s effort to contain sea crossings
  • The group in a post on Facebook condemned smuggling and human trafficking and said its patrols would continue efforts to block smuggling routes
  • The apprehensions come as Libya remains a primary point of departure for men, women and children from the Middle East and Africa aiming to reach Europe

TRIPOLI: Libyan military officials said Monday they apprehended hundreds of migrants traversing the country’s vast desert hoping to ultimately cross the Mediterranean Sea in pursuit of a better life in Europe.
The 444 Brigade, a powerful militia group that operates under the auspices of the Libyan army, said in a statement that its patrolling commanders detained more than 300 migrants and referred them to authorities.
The group in a post on Facebook condemned smuggling and human trafficking and said its patrols would continue efforts to block smuggling routes. It posted satellite images of the desert and pictures of what appeared to be migrants sitting in rows in front of armed and masked militants.
The apprehensions come as Libya remains a primary point of departure for men, women and children from the Middle East and Africa aiming to reach Europe. Many are escaping war or poverty and many employ smugglers to help them negotiate treacherous deserts and sea routes. Roughly 38,000 people have arrived in Italy and Malta from Libya this year, according to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency.
The overcrowded boats used by migrants and smugglers are known to routinely capsize and a key priority for European leaders has been to encourage North African countries to prevent migrants from reaching the sea. But unlike in Morocco and Tunisia — where tens of thousands of migrants also attempt to pass through en route to the southern shores of Europe — fighting between rival governments in Libya has added additional challenges to migration management partnerships.
Migrant apprehensions are rarely reported in Libya, though the country’s state news service LANA reported more than 2,000 arrests in July.
The oil-rich country plunged into turmoil after a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi. Since then, the country has been divided between dueling governments in the east and west, each backed by militias and foreign powers. Human traffickers have for years benefited from the political chaos.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk in July said migrants in the country had been subjected to torture, forced labor and starvation while being detained.