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Jordan's King Abdullah, Iraq's president discuss regional developments

Jordan's King Abdullah, Iraq's president discuss regional developments

Arab News07-02-2025
AMMAN: Jordan's King Abdullah II on Friday spoke on the phone with Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, according to the Jordan News Agency.
During the call, the two leaders discussed the latest regional developments and ongoing coordination between their countries.
In a phone call, His Majesty King Abdullah II stresses to #Iraq President Abdul Latif Rashid the importance of stepping up Arab efforts to support the Palestinian people in gaining their legitimate rights#Jordan
— RHC (@RHCJO) February 7, 2025
During the call, King Abdullah emphasized the need to intensify Arab efforts in supporting the Palestinian people in securing their full legitimate rights.
He reiterated Jordan's firm rejection of any attempts to annex land or forcibly displace Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
The King also stressed the importance of maintaining the ceasefire in Gaza, increasing humanitarian aid, and preventing further escalation in the West Bank.
In addition to Palestinian concerns, the conversation highlighted the necessity of continued coordination between Jordan and Iraq in response to regional challenges. The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening bilateral ties and addressing shared security and political priorities.
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Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf: Longstanding Support for Palestine, Steadfast Relations with Arab World
Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf: Longstanding Support for Palestine, Steadfast Relations with Arab World

Leaders

time3 hours ago

  • Leaders

Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf: Longstanding Support for Palestine, Steadfast Relations with Arab World

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Netanyahu says will ‘allow' Palestinians to leave Gaza amid Israel's push for control
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Al Arabiya

time5 hours ago

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Netanyahu says will ‘allow' Palestinians to leave Gaza amid Israel's push for control

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday revived calls to 'allow' Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip, as the military prepares a broader offensive in the territory. Past calls to resettle Gazans outside of the war-battered territory, including from US President Donald Trump, have sparked concern among Palestinians and condemnation from the international community. Netanyahu defended his war policies in a rare interview with Israeli media, broadcast shortly after Egypt said Gaza mediators were leading a renewed push to secure a 60-day truce. The premier told Israeli broadcaster i24NEWS that 'we are not pushing them out, but we are allowing them to leave.' 'Give them the opportunity to leave, first of all, combat zones, and generally to leave the territory, if they want,' he said, citing refugee outflows during wars in Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan. In the Gaza Strip, Israel for years has tightly controlled the borders and barred many from leaving. 'We will allow this, first of all within Gaza during the fighting, and we will certainly allow them to leave Gaza as well,' Netanyahu said. For Palestinians, any effort to force them off their land would recall the 'Nakba,' or catastrophe -- the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel's creation in 1948. Netanyahu has endorsed Trump's suggestion this year to expel Gaza's more than two million people to Egypt and Jordan, while far-right Israeli ministers have called for their 'voluntary' departure. Cairo talks Israel's plans to expand its offensive into Gaza City come as diplomacy aimed at securing an elusive ceasefire and hostage release deal in the 22-month-old war has stalled for weeks, after the latest round of negotiations broke down in July. Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty announced that Cairo was 'working very hard now in full cooperation with the Qataris and Americans,' aiming for 'a ceasefire for 60 days, with the release of some hostages and some Palestinian detainees, and the flow of humanitarian and medical assistance to Gaza without restrictions, without conditions.' Hamas said in a statement early Wednesday that a delegation of its leadership had arrived in Cairo for 'preliminary talks' with Egyptian officials. A Palestinian source earlier told AFP that the mediators were working 'to formulate a new comprehensive ceasefire agreement proposal' that would include the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza 'in one batch.' Netanyahu said in his interview he would oppose the staggered release of hostages, and instead would 'want to return all of them as part of an end to the war -- but under our conditions.' Mediation efforts led by Qatar, Egypt and the United States have failed to secure a breakthrough since a short-lived truce earlier this year. News of the potential truce talks came as Gaza's civil defense agency said Israel has intensified its air strikes on Gaza City in recent days, following the security cabinet's decision to expand the war there. Intensified strikes Netanyahu's government has not provided an exact timetable on when forces may enter the area, but civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said on Tuesday that air raids had already begun increasing over the past three days. Israel is 'intensifying its bombardment' using 'bombs, drones, and also highly explosive munitions that cause massive destruction,' he said. Bassal said that Israeli strikes across the territory, including on Gaza City, killed at least 33 people on Tuesday. 'The bombardment has been extremely intense for the past two days. With every strike, the ground shakes,' said Majed al-Hosary, a resident of Gaza City's Zeitun neighborhood. An Israeli air strike on Sunday killed four Al Jazeera employees and two freelance reporters outside a Gaza City hospital, with Israel accusing one of the slain correspondents of being a Hamas militant. Israel has faced mounting criticism over the war on Gaza. UN-backed experts have warned of widespread famine unfolding in the territory, where Israel has drastically curtailed the amount of humanitarian aid it allows in. Netanyahu is under mounting domestic pressure to secure the release of the remaining hostages taken in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks -- 49 people including 27 the Israeli military says are dead -- as well as over his plans to expand the war. Israel has killed at least 61,599 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Gaza, whose toll the United Nations considers reliable.

How Israeli raids, settler violence and annexation plans are driving the West Bank toward crisis
How Israeli raids, settler violence and annexation plans are driving the West Bank toward crisis

Arab News

time9 hours ago

  • Arab News

How Israeli raids, settler violence and annexation plans are driving the West Bank toward crisis

LONDON: While global attention remains focused on the war in Gaza, the occupied West Bank has been sliding deeper into crisis, largely out of sight. Israeli military raids and settler violence against Palestinians have escalated sharply, intensifying tensions across the territory. The UN Human Rights Office has warned of growing settler violence 'with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation of Israeli forces.' In a July 30 statement, the UN agency described 'a pattern of the use of unnecessary and disproportionate force that resulted in the unlawful killing and injury of Palestinians' in the West Bank. The report further alleged that Israeli authorities are pursuing a wider strategy of displacement and annexation — claims the government rejects, insisting instead that its actions are a response to security threats posed by Palestinian militants. 'State policy and legislative actions appear aimed at emptying certain areas of the West Bank of the Palestinian population, advancing the settlement enterprise, and consolidating the annexation' of large parts of the territory, the statement added. That warning was followed almost immediately by a significant political development, as Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defense Minister Israel Katz publicly declared that the current moment offered an opportunity to annex the West Bank — a move long opposed by much of the international community. 'Ministers Katz and Levin have been working for many years to implement Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,' their offices said in a joint statement on July 31, using the biblical name for the West Bank. 'At this very moment, there is a moment of opportunity that must not be missed.' The statement did not explain why now is the right opportunity, but it came on the heels of recent announcements by Western governments, including France and the UK, that they are prepared to recognize a Palestinian state. Just two days earlier, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK would recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September unless Israel moved to end the crisis in Gaza, commit to a ceasefire, and revive a two-state solution. 'There is an understandable focus on Gaza given the genocide that is going on, the horrific amount of destruction, loss of life, the starvation of a civilian population,' Chris Doyle, director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding, told Arab News. 'Of course, that is far, far worse than anything that is currently happening in the West Bank.' But, he warned, the difference in scale does not diminish the danger. 'I think what is scary about the West Bank is that many Palestinians there feel that they are next — that what has happened in Gaza will be happening to them.' That fear is not unfounded. 'We've already seen an uptick in Israeli military operations, particularly in the north of the West Bank, inside refugee camps,' said Doyle. 'We've seen demolitions at record levels, record levels of settler violence, all helped by the Israeli military, and the forced displacement of so many communities.' He added that ultra-nationalist elements within the Israeli government, 'particularly those who are really engaged with the ultra-nationalist settler movement,' are 'doing everything they can to exploit the situation in Gaza to push forward with their plans in the West Bank.' That concern is echoed by Israeli rights group B'Tselem, which warned in July of 'clear and imminent danger that the genocide will not remain confined to Gaza.' In its report, titled 'Our Genocide,' B'Tselem warned that the assault on Gaza is inseparable from escalating violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and within Israel. Indeed, violence in the West Bank has spiked since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza, and escalated further after Israel launched Operation Iron Wall on Jan. 21, which the Israeli government says is aimed at tackling militant groups in the territory's north. International monitors, including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Human Rights Watch, say the campaign has become increasingly indiscriminate, killing numerous noncombatants, including children. Save the Children reports at least 224 children were killed by Israeli forces or settlers between January 2023 and early 2025. OCHA says that from Oct. 7, 2023, to mid-July 2025, some 968 Palestinians — including 204 children — were killed in the West Bank. Civilians killed during this period include foreign nationals, such as Palestinian-American Khamis Al-Ayyad, whose family is seeking an investigation into his death in a settler attack on July 31. UN figures show around 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced — the largest such movement since the 1967 war — most of them from three refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem. Settler violence and military-imposed access restrictions have uprooted more than 2,200 more. House demolitions are also climbing. A new directive by the Israeli Civil Administration allows the military to raze Palestinian structures and expel around 1,200 residents from long-inhabited areas. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned such actions could constitute 'forcible transfer, which is a war crime.' The UN agency said in late June that such actions 'could also amount to a crime against humanity if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.' Israel says demolitions target unpermitted buildings, though Palestinians and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs note that such permits are nearly impossible to obtain. In June, the UN recorded the highest monthly injury toll from settler attacks in over 20 years. OHCHR counted 757 such attacks in the first seven months of 2025 — a 13 percent rise compared to the same period last year. UN General Assembly President Philemon Yang called these developments 'a critical moment in the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.' On July 28, he warned that 'while the situation in Gaza is dramatic, we must not lose sight of the deeply concerning and equally urgent situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.' Indeed, on Aug. 6, the Israeli government discussed building thousands of new housing units in the E1 area, east of occupied East Jerusalem. The project would link the Ma'ale Adumim settlement to Jerusalem, effectively bisecting the West Bank and isolating Palestinian communities. 'Not only would implementing the E1 doomsday settlement project split the West Bank into north and south, but also cement the separation of Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, as well as displacing around 12,500 Palestinians,' said Doyle. 'All of this, therefore, amounts to an extremely serious situation in the West Bank, which already exists under a regime of apartheid, where Israeli Jewish citizens of the State of Israel in settlements enjoy superior rights to Palestinians who are their neighbors.' The E1 plan, stalled since 2021 under US and EU pressure, envisions building more than 3,000 homes to the east of Jerusalem and is widely seen as a death blow to a future contiguous Palestinian state. In a joint statement in July, 31 Western nations, including the UK and France, announced their 'strong opposition' to the project, calling it 'a flagrant breach of international law' that would 'critically undermine the two-state solution.' However, the international community should be doing far more, said Doyle. He warned that the escalating situation in the West Bank 'does point to a fundamental failure of the international community, not just over the last 21-22 months, but actually over decades, to put an end to the settlement project — to reverse it. 'All of this, of course, has now been ordered by the International Court of Justice that says that Israel must withdraw from the settlements and pay reparations. And it is incumbent upon international actors to back that up and to take action to ensure that they are in no way complicit with Israel's regime of occupation.' The ICJ ruled in July 2024 that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem is illegal under international law. It found that Israeli settlements and use of natural resources in the occupied Palestinian territories are unlawful. The court ordered Israel to end its occupation, dismantle settlements, provide full reparations to Palestinians, and facilitate the return of displaced people. With the West Bank facing ever-increasing violence, mass displacement, and aid restrictions, the question looms: Will the world act to prevent it becoming another Gaza?

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