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RIYADH: Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has accepted the resignation of Deputy Prime Minster and Oil Minister Emad Al-Atiqi, Kuwait News Agency reported on Sunday.
Minister of Finance and Minister of State for Economic and Investment Affairs Nora Suleiman Al-Fassam was appointed as acting minister of oil.
LONDON: The Jordan Chamber of Commerce will host the inaugural Gulf-Jordanian Investment Conference on Dec. 4, the Jordan News Agency reported on Sunday.
Held in alignment with Jordan’s Economic Modernization Vision, the event is the latest bid to boost economic cooperation between Jordan and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) in conjunction with the Gulf-Jordanian Economic Forum, which held its third edition in 2023.
The conference will coincide with the 65th meeting of the Federation of Chambers of the GCC’s Board of Directors — the first such gathering held outside the GCC states.
The JCC President Khalil Haj Tawfiq told of the collaborative spirit of the conference in a statement on Sunday.
He said: “Through this conference we aspire to establish an integrated economic framework that will strengthen trade and investment cooperation, allowing us to better navigate global economic challenges and attract further investment.”
Key figures expected at the conference include the Secretary-General of the GCC Jasem Al-Budaiwi, leaders of Gulf chambers, board members, prominent Gulf investors, and representatives of economic and financial institutions from Jordan and the Gulf region.
The agenda will feature in-depth discussions on investment opportunities, success stories of Gulf investments in Jordan, and sector-focused dialogues with Jordanian ministers.
Priority sectors include energy, mining, transportation, logistics, tourism investment, food security, agricultural production, information technology, and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Tawfiq highlighted the timeliness of the event, given the current economic challenges facing the region.
He praised King Abdullah II for fostering stability and creating an investor-friendly environment, adding: “This conference is pivotal for Gulf-Jordanian economic integration, especially as global economic crises continue to affect us all.”
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: After over a year of war in Gaza, Palestinian fishermen gather along the coastline, desperately casting their nets in hopes of catching enough for their families amid widespread hunger.
Since Israel began a military onslaught in Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack, Israeli restrictions in the waters off the enclave have made life almost impossible for fishermen, who no longer sail out to sea and instead must stay by the shore.
In Khan Younis, Ibrahim Ghurab, 71, and Waseem Al Masry, 24, fish for sardines from the shoreline in front of a encampment of tents and makeshift shelters for those displaced by the war.
“Life is difficult,” Ghurab said. “One tries to secure food. There is no aid, we don’t receive anything anymore. In the beginning there was some (humanitarian) aid, very little, but now there is no more.”
Fishermen like Ghurab and Al Masry struggle daily to bring in even a modest catch to feed their families. There is rarely any fish left over from a daily haul to be sold to others.
Fishing was an important part of daily life in Gaza before the war, helping people eke out a living by selling their daily hauls in the market and feed the population.
But scant aid is reaching Gaza amid Israeli restrictions and frequent fighting, and many people have no income. The price of simple goods are largely out of reach for most.
“We have to come here and risk our lives,” Al Masry said, describing shootings by the Israeli military from the sea that he accused of targeting fisherman on the beach in Khan Younis.
Ghurab similarly said that Israeli military boats had fired upon fisherman at Khan Younis.
The Israeli military did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the claims the military had shot at fishermen.
Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas for the Islamist militant group’s deadly, cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023 has devastated densely populated Gaza and displaced most of the 2.3 million population.
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Sunday it had captured a Syrian spy for Iran in recent months, thwarting a planned attack by what it described as Iranian terror networks.
The military named the “Iranian terror network operative” as Ali Soleiman Al-Assi, a Syrian citizen living in the area of the southern village of Saida.
“His activities included gathering intelligence on IDF (Israeli military) troops in the border area for future terror activity of the network,” it said in a statement.
The military said the operation took place “in recent months,” adding that the Syrian citizen “was detained and transferred for interrogation in Israel.”
The operation “prevented a future attack and led to the exposure of the operational methods of Iranian terror networks located near the (occupied) Golan Heights.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, had previously reported that Israel had seized a Syrian man on July 19.
“Israeli forces detained a citizen who worked as a driver to transport milk to the capital Damascus,” the war monitor said in July.
It added that the Syrian was detained in the village of Al-Razatiya, in a southern province bordering the Golan Heights annexed by Israel.
“An Israeli military force of three cars and an armored vehicle crossed the border, entered the village and took the man to the occupied Golan Heights,” the observatory said.
Since late September Israel has been engaged in full-scale war against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began launching cross-border attacks last year, saying it was acting in support of Palestinian militants Hamas, whose unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7, 2023 triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.
Iran-aligned groups in Yemen, Iraq and Syria have also been drawn into the fighting, and Iran and Israel have themselves attacked each other, heightening fears of even wider conflict.
RISHON LE-ZION, Israel: A suspected leak of classified Gaza documents involving an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has jolted Israeli politics and outraged the families of hostages held by Hamas who have been pushing for a deal to get their loved ones home.
Details of the case have been trickling out only slowly because of a gag order.
But a court ruling partially lifting the order has provided an initial glimpse of the case which the court said had compromised security sources and may have harmed Israel’s war effort.
On Friday, the magistrates’ court confirmed that a number of suspects had been arrested as part of the probe into a suspected “security breach caused by the illegal provision of classified information.”
Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing by his office staffers and said in a statement on Saturday that he was only made aware of the leaked document by the media. The suspects could not be reached for comment.
Details from the document in question were published by the German Bild newspaper on Sept. 6, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, one of the media outlets that had appealed the court to lift the gag order.
The article, labelled as an exclusive, purportedly outlined the negotiation strategy of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militant group which Israel has been fighting in Gaza for more than a year.
Around that time, the United States, Qatar and Egypt were mediating ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, that were to include a deal to release hostages held in Gaza.
But the talks faltered with Israel and Hamas trading blame for the deadlock. The article in question largely corresponded with Netanyahu’s allegations against Hamas over the impasse.
It was published days after six Israeli hostages were found executed in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza. Their killing sparked mass protests in Israel and outraged hostage families, who accused Netanyahu of torpedoing the ceasefire talks for political reasons.
On Saturday, some of the families joined the Israeli journalists’ appeal to lift the gag order.
“These people have been living on a rollercoaster of rumors and half-truths,” said their lawyer, Dana Pugach.
“For the last year they have been waiting to hear any intelligence or any information about negotiations for the release of those hostages. If some of that information had been stolen from army sources then we think that the families have the right to learn about any relevant detail,” she added.
In another session on Sunday about the investigation by the Shin Bet domestic security service, police and the military, the court ordered one suspect be released, while keeping others in remand, according to Israeli Channel 13 News.
Asked about the investigation, Bild said that it does not comment on its sources. “The authenticity of the document known to us was confirmed by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) immediately after publication,” it said.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s retaliatory offensives have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced much of Gaza to rubble.
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces on Sunday took statements from eyewitnesses after Israeli commandos abducted a man said to be a senior Hezbollah naval operative.
In one of the most dramatic raids of the current conflict, Imad Amhaz was taken from a chalet he rented with his family in the coastal town of Batroun, northern Lebanon, by Israeli special forces who escaped by speedboat in the early hours of Friday.
Amhaz’s wife and a neighbor were among those interviewed by Lebanese security forces.
The abduction was kept secret in Lebanon until leaked footage of the operation appeared showing about 20 Israeli soldiers, fully equipped, leading Amhaz away.
Israel said that the raid, which took place about 40 km north of Beirut, lasted only a few minutes.
However, Lebanon denies Amhaz has links with Hezbollah, and has said it will file an urgent complaint with the UN Security Council.
Ali Hamieh, caretaker minister of public works and transport, on Sunday described the Batroun raid as “a blatant violation of Lebanese sovereignty.”
He said the government is still waiting on a detailed report into the incident, and added that caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati is “making contacts to neutralize the land and sea crossings from Israeli attacks.”
In a social media post and interviews with local television, Amhaz’s father, Fadel, called on the Lebanese government, navy, and UNIFIL forces to pursue his son’s case and work to have him released.
He said that his son is a civilian boat captain and had been studying in Batroun at the Marsati Institute for Marine Sciences, where he had undertaken courses since 2013.
“Imad usually works on civilian ships that transport either livestock or cars. He spends most of his time at sea. He has no connection to parties and does not interfere in politics,” his father said.
He called on the International Red Cross and UNIFIL forces to “communicate with the kidnappers to return my son to his family safely.”
Israeli Army Radio on Sunday said the naval commando operation in Batroun resulted in “the arrest of a Hezbollah leader.”
According to the military outlet, the operation had been planned for a long time, with Israeli intelligence services “waiting for an opportunity that would allow a high degree of certainty for its success.”
The radio reported that “the investigators, who speak Arabic, conducted a preliminary interrogation of the Hezbollah member who was arrested to confirm that he was the person targeted, he is a key member of Hezbollah and a figure fully involved in the party’s activities, and not an innocent Lebanese citizen as some parties in Lebanon tried to portray him.”
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes continued on Sunday in southern Lebanon and the Baalbek region.
A raid on a house in the town of Joya killed two people and injured several others. Raids also targeted towns in the Tyre, Nabatieh, Iqlim Al-Tuffah, Zahrani, and Sidon districts.
Three people were killed and nine injured in a raid on the town of Harat Saida, according to the Ministry of Health.
The Israeli army evacuated areas near the border town of Khiyam, according to Hezbollah, but retreated “after receiving severe blows from the party’s fighters.”
The Israeli army said that it had killed Farouk Amin Al-Asi, a Hezbollah company commander in Khiyam, while Youssef Ahmed Noun, a platoon commander in the Radwan Force in the Khiyam area, was also targeted.
A UNIFIL force and paramedics on Saturday reached Wata Al-Khiam, where dozens of civilians were believed to be sheltering in a house following clashes more than a week ago.
However, it turned out that the house had been leveled. Some bodies were recovered, while others remain beneath the rubble.
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee claimed in a post that “the Israeli army found on Sunday inside a children’s room in a house in the heart of a village in the south, which he did not name, rockets and combat equipment and destroyed them.”
Adraee said: “The forces of the 91st Division continued their specific ground activities in the south to thwart and destroy the infrastructure and eliminate Hezbollah elements.”
Israeli troops warned residents of Baalbek and the surrounding areas on Sunday to leave their homes.
The warning gave a four-hour deadline, but Israeli attacks began before the deadline expired with raids on the city of Baalbek and Douris, one of which struck the government hospital in Baalbek.
