DUBAI: Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit warned Monday that Iran and Israel were the main beneficiaries of turmoil across the Arab world, which he described as the worst he has ever seen.
“I have never seen anything worse than what we are now seeing,” Abul Gheit said at the Arab Media Forum in Dubai.
“Iran is enjoying what the Arab world is going through. There are those in Iran who are watching and waiting for us to destroy ourselves.”
Ties between Iran and Arab states have grown increasingly tense in recent years, with Tehran backing Syrian President Bashar Assad, Yemen’s Shiite Houthi rebels and armed Shiite groups in Iraq.
Arab governments largely back Syrian opposition groups.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have for the past two years battled the Houthis, who control the capital and strategic ports along the Red Sea coastline.
Israel also stood to benefit from conflicts across the region, Abul Gheit said.
“Israel was under enormous pressure to find a solution with the Palestinians,” he said.
“If I were the prime minister ... I would have thought these were the happiest days for Israel.”
Long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been overshadowed by global concerns over the Syrian war and Daesh group jihadists.
Iran big winner from region’s turmoil: Arab League head
Iran big winner from region’s turmoil: Arab League head
Israeli settlers forcibly enter Palestinian home in latest West Bank attack
- The settlers killed three sheep and injured four more, smashed a door and a window of the home
- Police said they arrested the five settlers on suspicion of trespassing onto Palestinian land
JERUSALEM: Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian home in the south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank overnight, breaking in and killing sheep, a Palestinian official said Tuesday. It was the latest in a surge of attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the territory in recent months.
Israeli police said they arrested five settlers.
The settlers killed three sheep and injured four more, smashed a door and a window of the home, and fired tear gas inside, sending three Palestinian children under the age of 4 to the hospital, said Amir Dawood, who directs an office documenting such attacks within a Palestinian governmental body called the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.
Police said they arrested the five settlers on suspicion of trespassing onto Palestinian land, damaging property and dispensing pepper spray, not tear gas. They said they are investigating.
CCTV video from the attack in the town of As Samu’, shared by the commission, showed five masked settlers in dark clothing, some with batons, approaching the home and appearing to enter. Sounds of smashing are heard, as well as animal noises. Another video from inside shows masked figures appearing to strike sheep in the stable.
Photos of the aftermath, also shared by the commission, show smashed car windows and a shattered front door. Bloodied sheep lie dead as others stand with blood staining their wool. Inside the home, photos show broken glass and the furniture ransacked.
Dawood said it was the second settler attack on the family in less than two months. He called it “part of a systematic and ongoing pattern of settler violence targeting Palestinian civilians, their property and their means of livelihood, carried out with impunity under the protection of the Israeli occupation.”
During October’s olive harvest, settlers across the territory launched an average of eight attacks daily, the most since the United Nations humanitarian office began collecting data in 2006. The attacks continued in November, with the UN recording at least 136 by Nov. 24.
Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state — in the 1967 war. It has settled over 500,000 Jews in the West Bank, in addition to over 200,000 in contested East Jerusalem.
Israel’s government is dominated by far-right proponents of the settler movement, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Cabinet Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the nation’s police force. Earlier this week, Smotrich said the Israeli cabinet had approved a proposal for 19 new Jewish settlements, another blow to the possibility of a Palestinian state.
