JERUSALEM: Israeli forces were hunting the assailant behind an attack that killed a soldier at an east Jerusalem checkpoint, authorities said Sunday, hours after two Palestinian teenagers were shot dead in an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli army said a soldier had been “killed as a result of being critically injured by a shooting attack” that police said had taken place at a checkpoint in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem near Shuafat Palestinian refugee camp.
Another Israeli had been “severely injured,” police said, and a third person, whose nationality was not specified, was hit by “shrapnel” in the incident, according to emergency services group Magen David Adom (MADA), which said all gunshot victims were in their 20s.
Police cordoned off the area near the checkpoint and dozens of officers had been deployed at the entrance and exit of east Jerusalem, while the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its medics were being prevented from entering the refugee camp.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid described the shooting as a “severe” attack.
“My heart is with the wounded and their families this evening. Terror will not defeat us, we are strong even on this difficult evening,” he said in a statement.
Earlier Saturday, two Palestinian teenagers were shot dead in an operation by Israeli forces in Jenin, the flashpoint northern city in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian health ministry announced the killing of “two citizens by occupation (Israeli) bullets in Jenin,” as Israeli troops carried out an arrest there. Eleven others were also wounded.
Those killed were named by the Palestinian health ministry as Ahmad Daraghmeh, 16, and Mahmoud as-Sous, 18. Islamic Jihad praised the teenagers as “its martyrs.”
Israel’s military said troops entered Jenin on Saturday to detain a 25-year-old Palestinian it said was a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group and suspected of shooting at troops in the area.
“During the activity, dozens of Palestinians hurled explosive devices and Molotov cocktails at IDF soldiers and shots were fired at them,” an army statement said, adding that soldiers fired at “the armed suspects.”
Saturday’s incident is the latest in a series of frequent and often deadly raids by Israel’s army targeting Palestinian militants, which have left dozens of both Palestinian fighters and civilians dead.
Following the latest deaths in Jenin, the Palestinian presidency called on Washington to “exert serious pressure on Israel to stop its all-out war against our Palestinian people.”
Israeli action “will push matters toward an explosion and a point of no return, which will have devastating consequences for all,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for president Mahmud Abbas, in a statement published by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The agency also reported Israeli forces fired directly at journalists during the Jenin raid.
Two reporters were wounded Wednesday while covering a military operation witnessed by an AFP journalist near the West Bank city of Nablus, in which one Palestinian was killed.
In March, Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead while covering an Israeli raid in Jenin.
Saturday’s violence in Jenin comes a day after two other Palestinian teenagers were shot dead by Israeli forces, according to the health ministry — Adel Dawoud, 14, killed in the northern West Bank, and Mahdi Ladadweh, 17, killed near the city of Ramallah.
“I am alarmed by the deteriorating security situation, including the rise in armed clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” Tor Wennesland, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said in a statement.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War and around 475,000 Israelis now live in settlements across the territory, which are considered illegal by most of the international community.
They live alongside some 2.8 million Palestinians, who in different areas of the West Bank are subject to Israeli military rule or limited Palestinian governance.
Israeli forces hunt east Jerusalem checkpoint attacker
https://arab.news/wbrg6
Israeli forces hunt east Jerusalem checkpoint attacker
- Dozens of officers had been deployed at the entrance and exit of east Jerusalem
- Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid described the shooting as a “severe” attack
Iran’s hard-line parliament speaker Mohammad Qalibaf registers as a presidential candidate
Monday marked the last day of registration for the competition. Other politicians have been rumored as potential candidates in the vote to replace Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash with seven others on May 19.
Qalibaf initially became speaker following a string of failed presidential bids and 12 years as the leader of Iran’s capital city, during which he built onto Tehran’s subway and supported the construction of modern high-rises. He was recently re-elected as speaker.
Many, however, know Qalibaf for his support, as a Revolutionary Guard general, for a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999. He also reportedly ordered live gunfire to be used against Iranian students in 2003 while serving as the country’s police chief.
Egypt’s President Sisi orders PM Madbouly to form new cabinet
DUBAI: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi reappointed on Monday Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly to form a new government after the latter submitted his cabinet's resignation, following Sisi's reelection for a third term last year, the presidency said in a statement.
“Today, I assigned Dr. Mostafa Madbouly to form a new government that includes the necessary expertise and competencies to manage the next phase, in order to achieve the desired development in government performance and confront the challenges facing the state,” the Egyptian president said on his official account on X.
UN experts urge all countries to recognize Palestinian statehood
- The call came less than a week after Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognized a Palestinian state
GENEVA: A group of United Nations experts called on Monday for all countries to recognize a Palestinian state to ensure peace in the Middle East.
The call came less than a week after Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognized a Palestinian state, prompting anger from Israel, which has found itself increasingly isolated after nearly eight months of war in Gaza.
The experts, including the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said recognition of a Palestinian state was an important acknowledgement of the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggle toward freedom and independence.
“This is a pre-condition for lasting peace in Palestine and the entire Middle East – beginning with the immediate declaration of a ceasefire in Gaza and no further military incursions into Rafah,” they said.
“A two-state solution remains the only internationally agreed path to peace and security for both Palestine and Israel and a way out of generational cycles of violence and resentment.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
With their recognition of a Palestinian state, Spain, Ireland and Norway said they sought to accelerate efforts to secure a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
The three countries say they hope their decision will spur other European Union states to follow suit. Denmark’s parliament later rejected a proposal to recognize a Palestinian state.
Israel has repeatedly condemned moves to recognize a Palestinian state, saying they bolster Hamas, the militant Islamist group that led the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel which sparked the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The conflict has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Israel says the Oct. 7 attack, the worst in its 75-year history, killed 1,200 people, with more than 250 hostages taken.
Iran’s supreme leader says Israel headed for ‘destruction’
- Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran, the main Shiite Muslim power, has emerged as the bitter enemy of Israel and that country’s Western allies the United States and Britain
TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday praised Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack against Israel and predicted the “destruction” of their common enemy.
Khamenei, 85, was speaking at an event to mark 35 years since the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic which replaced a US-backed monarchy.
He said the October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas “was a decisive blow to the Zionist regime” and put Israel “on the path that will only end in its destruction.”
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran, the main Shiite Muslim power, has emerged as the bitter enemy of Israel and that country’s Western allies the United States and Britain.
Iran is under international sanctions over its contested nuclear program which it insists is for civilian purposes.
While Israel and Iran have long fought a shadow war of killings and sabotage, Iran’s armed allies across the Middle East have formed a so-called “Axis of Resistance” alliance.
As the Gaza war has raged, Iran and Israel came to the brink of war in mid-April when Tehran launched a barrage of rockets and missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted.
Iran has said it had no advance knowledged of Hamas’s October 7 attack but has praised it since.
Khamenei said the attack “happened at the right time” and “destroyed a major international conspiracy for the Middle East,” a possible reference to US-led moves to broker diplomatic ties between Israel and Arab powers.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,190 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took about 250 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory bombardments and ground offensive have killed at least 36,439 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said on Sunday.
Khamenei, who spoke to thousands gathered in the Khomeini mausoleum near Tehran, also said that “the Zionist regime is gradually melting before the eyes of the people of the world.”
“Sooner or later, America will have to withdraw its support,” he added.
Doubts grow over Gaza truce plan as Israel-Hamas battles rage
- Israeli military says that over the past day its forces had struck ‘over 50 targets in the Gaza Strip’
- Bombardments and combat show no sign of easing in the Gaza war soon entering its ninth month
RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: Doubts were growing on Monday about a plan for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal outlined by US President Joe Biden as heavy fighting raged for a third day since his White House address.
Biden on Friday presented what he labelled an Israeli three-phase plan that would end the bloody conflict, free all hostages and lead to the reconstruction of the devastated Palestinian territory without Hamas in power.
However, Netanyahu’s office stressed Saturday that Israel would push on with the war sparked by the October 7 attack by Palestinian militants on southern Israel until all of its “goals are achieved” including the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.
Israeli media have questioned to what extent Biden’s speech and some crucial details were coordinated with Netanyahu’s team, including how long any truce would hold and how many captives would be freed when.
Mediators the United States, Qatar and Egypt later said they called “on both Hamas and Israel to finalize the agreement embodying the principles outlined by President Joe Biden.”
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Sunday that “we have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal... that Israel would say yes.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “commended” Israel on the plan in a phone call with war cabinet member Benny Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the State Department said.
But for now, the bombardments and combat showed no sign of easing in the Gaza war soon entering its ninth month that has devastated the Palestinian coastal territory of 2.4 million people.
On Monday the Israeli military said that over the past day its forces had struck “over 50 targets in the Gaza Strip.”
Gaza hospitals on Monday reported at least 19 people killed in overnight strikes.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,190 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took about 250 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory bombardments and ground offensive have killed at least 36,439 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said on Sunday.
Heavy fighting has raged especially in Gaza’s far-southern Rafah area near the Egyptian border, where most civilians have now been displaced once more, according to UN agencies.
Air strikes and artillery shelling were reported in Rafah, mainly in the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood, as well as in Gaza City, witnesses said.
“Troops are continuing intelligence-based targeted operations in the Rafah area,” the army said.
“Over the past day, the troops conducted scans and located terror infrastructure and large quantities of weapons.”
Gaza’s European hospital said 10 people were killed and several wounded in an Israeli air strike on a house near the main southern city of Khan Yunis.
And six people were reported killed in a strike on a family home in the central Bureij refugee camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
Netanyahu — a hawkish veteran leading a fragile coalition government often described as the most right-wing in Israel’s history — is under intense domestic pressure from two sides.
Relatives and supporters of hostages have staged mass protests demanding that he strike a truce deal — but the premier’s far-right coalition allies are threatening to bring down the government if he does.
According to Biden, Israel’s three-stage offer would begin with a six-week phase that would see Israeli forces withdraw from all populated areas of Gaza and an initial hostage-prisoner exchange.
Both sides would then negotiate for a lasting ceasefire, with the truce to continue as long as talks are ongoing, Biden said, adding it was “time for this war to end.”
Netanyahu took issue with Biden’s presentation, insisting that according to the “exact outline proposed by Israel” the transition from one stage to the next was “conditional” and crafted to allow it to maintain its war aims.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, leaders of extreme-right parties, warned they would leave the government if it endorsed the truce proposal.
But opposition leader Yair Lapid, a centrist former premier, said the government “cannot ignore Biden’s important speech” and vowed to back Netanyahu if his far-right coalition partners quit.
Gallant, who has criticized Netanyahu over the lack of a post-war plan for Gaza, said Sunday that Israel was “assessing a governing alternative” to Hamas to rule the territory after the war ends.
UN and other aid agencies have warned for months of the looming risk of famine in the besieged territory.
At a hospital in Deir Al-Balah, 33-year-old Amira Al-Taweel said that her frail son, suffering from malnutrition, “needs treatment and milk, but there’s none available in Gaza.”
Israel’s seizure last month of the Rafah crossing has further slowed sporadic aid deliveries for Gaza’s people and effectively closed its main exit point on the Egyptian border.
Cairo refuses to coordinate with Israel humanitarian deliveries through Rafah, but has agreed to send some aid via Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing.
