AMMAN: Senior Palestinian leaders have welcomed a call for the reconvening of the Palestine Central Council (PCC).
Tayseer Khaled, a member of the PLO’s executive committee and a senior leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Arab News that it was time that the PLO’s top bodies met to assess the current situation.
“The last time that the PCC met was in March 2015 and at that time it was decided to hold a meeting every three months,” he said. Khaled said that a number of decisions made at the last meeting had yet to be carried out. “It was decided to end our connection with the Oslo Accords and the security coordination with Israel but this has not happened.”
Senior Fatah leader Azzam Ahmad said Monday the central council will discuss the declaration of Palestine as a “state under occupation.” Ahmad said that the PCC will convene in the middle of January 2018 in Ramalah.
Tayseer Nasrallah, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and a member of the Palestine National Council, also welcomed the call for the central council, although he also wants the more important Palestine National Council (PNC) to meet as soon as possible.
“We need the PNC to meet now because of the extremely difficult situation we are in and in order to have a high level discussion of our priorities, and to launch a new national liberation strategy that is in sync with our people’s wishes of having an independent state and enacting the right of return,” he said.
Nasrallah, a Fatah leader in Nablus who spent many years in Israeli jails, told Arab News that it was important to reassess relations with the Israeli occupiers and the Americans. “We need a serious review of the entire Oslo process, what is positive and negative about it, so that we can rid ourselves of these shackles and return to proper relations between an occupied people and the occupation. We also need to seriously review our relations with the United states,” Nasrallah said.
Tayseer Khaled also believes that the time has come for the state of Palestine to join all remaining international organizations and agencies.
“This is an opportune time for the PLO to decide on joining some 22 international agencies we have been prevented from joining due to the US conditions,” he said.
He believes that a new strategy for Palestine should include the need to agree on a new multinational mechanism for sponsoring any future talks.
It is still not clear whether Hamas and Islamic Jihad will attend the upcoming Palestine Central Council and where exactly it will take place. A senior source in the Popular Front said it preferred that the meeting would take place outside the Occupied Territories to ensure that all members attended.
However, Nasrallah told Arab News that it was best to hold the meeting in Palestine and those who could not come could join via video conferencing.
Leaders welcome meeting of Palestine Central Council
Leaders welcome meeting of Palestine Central Council
UN has got only 12 percent of funds sought for war-wracked Sudan
“In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in“
GENEVA: The United Nations warned on Friday that it had only received 12 percent of the $2.7 billion being sought for war-wracked Sudan, adding that “famine is closing in.”
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in Sudan since war broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The United Nations says more than 1.4 million people have fled the country.
“It is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters.
“Without more resources coming in fast, humanitarian organizations won’t be able to scale up in time to stave off famine and prevent further deprivation,” he said.
“In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in. The fighting is closing in on civilians, especially in Darfur.”
The United Nations has expressed growing concern in recent days over reports of heavy fighting in densely populated areas as the RSF seeks control of El-Fasher, the last major city in the western Darfur region not under its control.
“Now is the time for donors to make good on pledges made, step up and help us help Sudan and be part of changing the current trajectory that’s leading toward the cliff’s edge. Don’t be missing in action,” he said.
Shible Sahbani, the UN’s World Health Organization representative in Sudan, said: “Thirteen months of war in Sudan, nine million people displaced which represent around 17 percent of the population and the largest internal displacement crisis in the world today.
“This conflict has... nearly destroyed the health system which is almost collapsed now. Close to 16,000 people have died due to this war, 33,000 have been injured,” she said, speaking from Port Sudan.
Sahbani said the real toll was “probably much higher.”
The RSF and Sudan’s armed forces are seen as both wanting to secure a battleground victory and each side has received support from outside players.
The UN human rights chief Volker Turk this week separately spoke to Lt. General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, president of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Commander of the Rapid Support Forces.
“He urged them both to act immediately — and publicly — to de-escalate the situation,” UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said.
Israeli military finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza, including Shani Louk, killed at music festival
- A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world
- The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter
JERUSALEM: Israeli military says its troops in Gaza found the bodies of three Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk.
A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world and brought to light the scale of the militants’ attack on communities in southern Israel.
The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said all three were killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival, an outdoor dance party near the Gaza border, and their bodies taken into the Palestinian territory.
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more. Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
Iran arrests 3 Europeans at ‘Satanist’ gathering along with 260 others, Tasnim says
- Those detained comprised 146 men and 115 women and that alcohol and psychedelic drugs were seized.
DUBAI: Iranian security forces have arrested more than 260 people, including three European nationals, at a “Satanist” gathering west of the capital Tehran, the semi-official new agency Tasnim reported on Friday.
“Satanist network broken up in Tehran, arrests of three European nationals,” Tasnim wrote, adding that those detained comprised 146 men and 115 women and that alcohol — banned under Iran’s Islamic laws — and psychedelic drugs were seized.
The report did not give the nationality of the Europeans.
Spain PM will Wednesday announce date to recognize Palestinian state
- Sanchez said in March that Spain and Ireland, along with Slovenia and Malta had agreed to take the first steps toward recognition of a Palestinian state
MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Friday he will on Wednesday announce the date on which Madrid will recognize a Palestinian state along with other nations.
“We are in the process of coordinating with other countries,” he said during an interview with private Spanish television station La Sexta when asked if this step would be taken on Tuesday as announced by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Sanchez said in March that Spain and Ireland, along with Slovenia and Malta had agreed to take the first steps toward recognition of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, seeing a two-state solution as essential for lasting peace.
Borrell told Spanish public radio last week that Spain, Ireland and Slovenia planned to symbolically recognize a Palestinian state on May 21, saying he had been given this date by Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said Tuesday that Dublin was certain to recognize Palestinian statehood by the end of the month but the “specific date is still fluid.”
So far, 137 of the 193 UN member states have recognized a Palestinian state, according to figures provided by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
Despite the growing number of EU countries in favor of such a move, neither France nor Germany support the idea. Western powers have long argued such recognition should only happen as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.
Israel army says civilians torched Gaza-bound aid truck in West Bank
- Driver as well as Israel soldiers were injured in the attack
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Friday that “dozens of Israeli civilians” set fire the previous evening to an aid truck in the occupied West Bank headed for war-torn Gaza.
Local media reported that Israeli settlers were behind the attack, which the army said injured the driver as well as Israeli soldiers.
The incident took place near Kokhav Hashahar, an Israeli settlement in the central West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
According to the army, Israeli soldiers intervened to “separate the Israeli civilians from the attacked Israeli driver” and provided medical assistance.
The group then “responded with violence,” and three Israeli soldiers were “lightly injured,” the army said, condemning “all forms of violence against its soldiers and security forces.”
On Monday, dozens of people blocked and vandalized a convoy of aid trucks driving to the Gaza Strip.
Israeli media identified them as part of a far-right group opposed to allowing aid into Gaza.
The trucks were attacked in Israel, shortly after passing through the Tarqumiya checkpoint from the West Bank.
Images posted on social media show Israeli soldiers watching on as the attackers destroy the aid.
The latest incident comes just hours after the army said on Thursday that the Tarqumia and Beitunia checkpoints “now also function as inspection points for aid” destined for Gaza.
Jordanian authorities said “Israeli extremists” in the West Bank attacked two aid convoys sent on May 1 from Jordan and another convoy of 35 trucks sent on May 7.
Israel has been fighting their bloodiest war ever in Gaza since the Palestinian militants attacked Israel on October 7.
Despite the United Nations warning of looming famine, Israeli authorities have tightly controlled much needed humanitarian aid into Gaza over the course of more than seven months of war.
Very little aid has made it through Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, and Rafah crossing has been completely shut since Israeli troops took control of the area last week.
Israel has vowed to defeat remaining Hamas forces in the southern city of Rafah, which it says is the last bastion of the group whose October 7 attack triggered the war.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
More than 35,303 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the war broke out, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
