Latest news with #ACANU
Al Arabiya
28-02-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Trump's Gaza ‘riviera' should be for Gazans, says minister
US President Donald Trump 's idea to rebuild the Gaza Strip as a swanky riviera is unacceptable unless it is for Gazans themselves to live in, a Palestinian minister said on Friday. 'It's very good to rebuild Gaza as a riviera -- but with its people in it,' said Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian. Trump's vision for Gaza involves the United States taking over the occupied Palestinian territory, resettling its Palestinian inhabitants elsewhere and transforming the war-ravaged strip into a riviera for 'world people'. Aghabekian said displacing Gazans elsewhere was 'unacceptable, by all means'. 'Let it become a riviera,' she said, 'but for its people, who have been suffering for such a long time and deserve that their place becomes a riviera rather than a besieged place that smells of death.' Aghabekian was speaking to the United Nations correspondents' association ACANU during a visit to Geneva to address the UN Human Rights Council. She said it would be a 'natural development' for her Palestinian Authority to run the territory instead of the militant group Hamas in future. 'Palestinian national interests should supersede any other factional interests,' she said. 'The running of Gaza would be through the legitimate authority of the state of Palestine and its arm the government. That's how we see it for the future of Gaza.' 'Gaza-isation' of West Bank Hamas called on Friday for international pressure on Israel to enter the next phase of a ceasefire between them that has largely halted the war in Gaza, as negotiations were resuming in Cairo. The fragile ceasefire, which came into effect on January 19, 'has to be maintained at any cost', said Aghabekian. The ceasefire has seen the release of Israel hostages from Gaza, with Hamas staging elaborate handover ceremonies, and Palestinian prisoners from Israeli detention. Aghabekian said hostages should be treated with respect and within the law. 'We would hope that there would be no more exhibitions of such parades in the future and that the release of the rest of the hostages and moving into the second phase takes place smoothly,' she said. Hundreds of Palestinians, some kept in Israeli jails for years, have been freed in the West Bank under the ceasefire. 'These people need a lot of rehabilitation. They need to integrate into a society that is already struggling and suffering, so there are a lot of issues of concern,' Aghabekian said. Israel's military began a major raid against what they said were Palestinian militants in the West Bank over a month ago, in the longest continuous offensive in the occupied territory in two decades. 'The situation on the West Bank is extremely volatile,' Aghabekian said. 'What we are being threatened with is the Gaza-isation of the West Bank, which means that people are afraid that the model that has been exercised on the Gaza Strip -- the genocidal, atrocious, brutal attacks -- are transferred to the West Bank.'
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Gaza 'riviera' should be for Gazans, says minister
US President Donald Trump's idea to rebuild the Gaza Strip as a swanky riviera is unacceptable unless it is for Gazans themselves to live in, a Palestinian minister said on Friday. "It's very good to rebuild Gaza as a riviera -- but with its people in it," said Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian. Trump's vision for Gaza involves the United States taking over the occupied Palestinian territory, resettling its Palestinian inhabitants elsewhere and transforming the war-ravaged strip into a riviera for "world people". Aghabekian said displacing Gazans elsewhere was "unacceptable, by all means". "Let it become a riviera," she said, "but for its people, who have been suffering for such a long time and deserve that their place becomes a riviera rather than a besieged place that smells of death." Aghabekian was speaking to the United Nations correspondents' association ACANU during a visit to Geneva to address the UN Human Rights Council. She said it would be a "natural development" for her Palestinian Authority to run the territory instead of the militant group Hamas in future. "Palestinian national interests should supersede any other factional interests," she said. "The running of Gaza would be through the legitimate authority of the state of Palestine and its arm the government. That's how we see it for the future of Gaza." - 'Gaza-isation' of West Bank - Hamas called on Friday for international pressure on Israel to enter the next phase of a ceasefire between them that has largely halted the war in Gaza, as negotiations were resuming in Cairo. The fragile ceasefire, which came into effect on January 19, "has to be maintained at any cost", said Aghabekian. The ceasefire has seen the release of Israel hostages from Gaza, with Hamas staging elaborate handover ceremonies, and Palestinian prisoners from Israeli detention. Aghabekian said hostages should be treated with respect and within the law. "We would hope that there would be no more exhibitions of such parades in the future and that the release of the rest of the hostages and moving into the second phase takes place smoothly," she said. Hundreds of Palestinians, some kept in Israeli jails for years, have been freed in the West Bank under the ceasefire. "These people need a lot of rehabilitation. They need to integrate into a society that is already struggling and suffering, so there are a lot of issues of concern," Aghabekian said. Israel's military began a major raid against what they said were Palestinian militants in the West Bank over a month ago, in the longest continuous offensive in the occupied territory in two decades. "The situation on the West Bank is extremely volatile," Aghabekian said. "What we are being threatened with is the Gaza-isation of the West Bank, which means that people are afraid that the model that has been exercised on the Gaza Strip -- the genocidal, atrocious, brutal attacks -- are transferred to the West Bank." rjm/vog/gil
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
UN war crimes investigators say Syria 'rich in evidence'
Despite concerns around the destruction of documents and other indications of serious crimes committed in Syria under Bashar al-Assad's rule, UN investigators stressed Friday that plenty of evidence remained unspoiled. "The country is rich in evidence, and we won't have huge difficulty in pursuing accountability, criminal justice," said Hanny Megally of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria. The sudden ousting last month of president Assad after decades of dictatorship has seen the commission suddenly gain access to Syria, after striving since the early days of the civil war in 2011 to probe from abroad the vast array of alleged abuses. "It was amazing to be in Damascus after the whole life of the commission not having access to the country at all," Magally told the Geneva UN correspondents' association ACANU, following a recent visit to Syria. With families rushing to former prisons, detention centres and suspected mass graves to find any trace of disappeared relatives, many have expressed concern about safeguarding documents and other evidence. Describing his visits to prisons in Damascus, Magally acknowledged that "a lot of the evidence seems to have been tampered with, and either it was on the ground and you could see people ... had been walking all over it, or had been damaged or destroyed. "And we've all seen the reports of people having taken away documents with them." - Evidence destroyed - The notorious Saydnaya prison complex -- the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances that epitomises the atrocities committed against Assad's opponents -- "is pretty much emptied of any documents", Magally added. He also said there were clear signs "of deliberate destruction of evidence", presumably by the Assad authorities before they left. During his visit, Magally said he had seen "one or two places (with) rooms that looked to me like they were used to deliberately burn documents". But he voiced optimism that the Syrian state under Assad was "a system that probably kept duplicates if not triplicates of everything, (so) even if evidence was destroyed, that may exist somewhere else". And even in places where documents had clearly been intentionally destroyed, other parts of the building were "intact" and filled with evidence, he said. "It seemed that there's still quite a lot of evidence that's protected now, and we hope can be used in future accountability." nl/rjm/jj
