JERUSALEM: Oman’s foreign minister made a rare visit by an Arab official to a Jerusalem holy site on Thursday after holding talks with Palestinian leaders in the occupied West Bank.
Yusuf bin Alawi visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, an AFP journalist reported.
His visit comes in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on December 6, a move that angered the Muslim world.
Such a visit would usually require coordination with Israeli officials. An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said he was unaware of the visit and could not immediately comment.
Oman and Israel do not have official diplomatic relations, as is the case with most of the Arab world.
The Al-Aqsa mosque compound is the third-holiest site for Muslims and the scene of regular tensions between Palestinians and Israeli authorities.
It is on the hill that Jews refer to as the Temple Mount, the most sacred place in Judaism as the site of the first and second Jewish temples in the biblical era.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken repeatedly of improving ties with Arab nations in recent months, but there was no sign of a link to the minister’s visit.
Bin Alawi visited the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque at the compound and said “it is a duty of Arabs to visit the mosque if they can.”
Jerusalem’s status is perhaps the most sensitive in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel occupied east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community. It sees the entire city as its capital.
The Palestinians want Jerusalem’s eastern sector as the capital of their future state.
Bin Alawi met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah earlier in the day.
Oman minister makes rare visit by Arab official to Jerusalem holy site
Oman minister makes rare visit by Arab official to Jerusalem holy site
Outpouring of anger as thousands of Jordanians protest at Israeli embassy
- Surge in protests sparked by claims of Israeli soldiers raping, executing Palestinian women
- Many of Jordan’s 12m citizens are descendants of displaced Palestinians
AMMAN: Thousands of Jordanians marched to the Israeli embassy in Amman on Wednesday for the fourth consecutive day in an outpouring of anger at Israel’s brutal war on Gaza.
“The people demand the end of Wadi Araba,” some chanted, referring to Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel.
Protestors, who began gathering at the Kaloti mosque around 10 p.m., were met by hundreds of security personal and military tanks in anticipation of the planned march to the heavily fortified Israeli embassy nearby.
Ambulances and medical teams were stationed as a precaution in the wake of days marked by violent confrontations between protestors and riot police.
Jordan has had some of the largest peaceful protests in the region since October, with regular marches in downtown Amman drawing hundreds of thousands of people on consecutive Fridays.
However, several demonstrators on Wednesday told Arab News the recent surge of daily gatherings near the Israel embassy were triggered by claims by Jamila Al-Hissi, a Palestinian woman, who told Al Jazeera Arabic of Israeli soldiers torturing, raping and executing women inside Al-Shifa hospital.
There have been reports that Al-Hissa’s claimed were denied on March 25 by a former Al Jazeera executive, who referenced a purported Hamas investigation.
Jordanians have felt the impact of the war in Gaza deeply, where Israel’s relentless bombing has killed over 32,000 Palestinians.
Many of Jordan’s 12 million citizens are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were expelled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.
“I’m devastated that we haven’t been able to help Gaza. The least that we can do is to be here so that our brothers and sisters in Palestine know that we’re standing with them,” 29-year-old Haneen Ashour told Arab News.
Popular chants like “No Zionist embassy on Jordanian soil” reflect the widespread public opposition to diplomatic normalization with Israel, seen as a betrayal of the Palestinians suffering under occupation.
Despite the large turnout and passionate demonstrations, some protesters have expressed doubt about the impact of their actions.
“This is our duty and it’s the least that we can do, but to be honest with you I don’t (know if) these protests are making any difference. If they were, we wouldn’t be 171 days into the war in Gaza,” 24-year-old Ammar Najar said.
Several protesters were beaten in previous days, and dozens were arrested as they attempted to break a heavy police cordon around the embassy, witnesses said.
Jordan’s authorities allow protests but say they cannot tolerate any attempt to storm the embassy, instigate civic unrest or try to reach borders with the occupied West Bank or Israel.
Gun attack on school bus in West Bank wounds 3 Israelis: army
- Soldiers were pursuing the suspect
JERUSALEM: Medics and the army said three people including a boy were wounded in a gun attack Thursday that targeted a school bus near the city of Jericho in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
After reports that a militant fired toward “a number of vehicles,” soldiers were sent to the scene near the town of Al-Auja, the military said, adding that soldiers were pursuing the suspect.
The military confirmed a school bus had been targeted.
A 30-year-old man was in serious condition with gunshot wounds, while a 21-year-old man was less seriously wounded and a 13-year-old boy suffered shrapnel injuries, emergency services said.
Israeli public radio said the masked gunman started shooting at Israeli cars at around 7:00 a.m. local time, hitting a car and a school bus.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in October. The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7 that left about 1,160 people dead.
More than 440 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since the war broke out, according to the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.
At least 17 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in attacks there over the same period, say the Israeli authorities.
Israeli strikes on Rafah raise fear ground assault could begin
- Israeli forces just north of Rafah kept the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, Al-Amal and Nasser Hospital, under a blockade imposed late last week
- In the north, they were still operating inside Al Shifa Hospital, which they stormed more than a week ago
GAZA STRIP: Israel bombed at least four homes in Rafah on Wednesday, raising new fear among the more than a million Palestinians sheltering in the last refuge on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip that a long-threatened ground assault could be coming.
One of the airstrikes killed 11 people from a single family, health officials said.
Mussa Dhaheer, looking on from below as neighbors helped an emergency worker lower a victim in a black body bag from an upper story, said he had awakened to the blast, kissed his terrified daughter, and rushed outside to find the destruction. His father, 75, and mother, 62, were among the dead.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I can’t make sense of what happened. My parents. My father with his displaced friends who came from Gaza City,” he told Reuters.
“They were all together, when suddenly they were all gone like dust.”
At another bomb site, Jamil Abu Houri said the intensification of air strikes was Israel’s way of showing its disdain for a UN Security Council resolution last week demanding an immediate Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Next up, he fears a ground assault on Rafah, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to carry out despite warnings from closest ally Washington that this would wreak a humanitarian disaster.
“The bombing has increased, and they have threatened us with an incursion, and they say that have been given the green light for the Rafah incursion. Where is the Security Council?” Abu Houri said.
A US official said on Wednesday Israel had asked to reschedule a meeting in Washington to discuss its plans for Rafah, days after Netanyahu abruptly canceled the talks over the passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution by the UN Security Council that the US decided not to veto.
The US abstention from the vote pointed to frustration with Netanyahu, who rebuked Washington over the move.
More deadly airstrikes
Another Israeli airstrike in Rafah on Wednesday afternoon killed four Palestinians including a woman and a child and injured other residents, Gaza health authorities said.
Just west of Gaza City in the enclave’s north, seven people were killed in an airstrike on a house, health officials said.
The Israeli military says it is targeting armed Hamas militants who use civilian buildings, including apartment blocks and hospitals, for cover. Hamas denies doing so.
Separately, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where bloodshed has worsened in parallel with the Gaza war, three Palestinians were killed and four wounded by Israeli fire during a raid in Jenin overnight, the Palestinian health ministry said.
At least 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s air and ground offensive into Hamas-run Gaza, according to the health ministry there, with thousands of other dead believed buried under rubble and over 80 percent of the 2.3 million population displaced, many at risk of famine.
The war erupted after Islamist Hamas militants broke through the border on Oct. 7 and rampaged through nearby communities, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Israeli forces just north of Rafah kept the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, Al-Amal and Nasser Hospital, under a blockade imposed late last week. In the north, they were still operating inside Al Shifa, the enclave’s largest hospital, which they stormed more than a week ago.
Israel says the hospitals have been lairs for Hamas gunmen, which Hamas and medical staff deny. The Israeli military has said it killed and captured hundreds of fighters in a battle in Al Shifa. Hamas says civilians and medics were rounded up.
Gaza’s health ministry said wounded people and patients were being held inside Al Shifa’s human resources department that was not equipped to provide them with health care.
Residents living nearby have reported hearing constant explosions in and around Al Shifa and columns of smoke coming from buildings inside the premises.
International mediation has failed to secure a ceasefire and exchange of prisoners so far as the two sides stick to irreconcilable demands. Hamas wants an end to the war and total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza while Israel has vowed to keep fighting until the group is eradicated.
US says it downed four Yemen rebel drones in Red Sea
- US and British forces have responded with strikes against the Houthis, who have since declared American and British interests to be legitimate targets as well
WASHINGTON: The United States military said Wednesday it had downed four drones launched by Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen aimed at a US warship in the Red Sea.
US Central Command said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that its forces had “engaged and destroyed four long-range unmanned aerial systems” at around 2 am Sanaa time (2300 GMT), adding there were no injuries or damage reported to US or coalition ships.
“It was determined these weapons presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region,” the statement said.
“These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for US Navy and merchant vessels,” it added.
In November, the Houthis launched a campaign of drone and missile strikes against vessels in the Red Sea, an area vital for world trade, in professed solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
US and British forces have responded with strikes against the Houthis, who have since declared American and British interests to be legitimate targets as well.
Why Jordan is braced for challenging security scenarios
- Earlier this month, Jordan scrambled jets after detecting ‘suspicious aerial activity’ along border with Syria
- Hashemite kingdom has stepped up its no-tolerance policy for cross-border drug smuggling in recent years
LONDON: Amid escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, Jordan is looking to bolster its defenses against possible incursions by Iran-backed militias on its borders.
The new approach follows a series of attacks against US military bases across the Gulf, culminating in a drone assault on a logistics support site of the Jordanian Defense Network near the Syrian border on Jan. 28, which left three American soldiers dead and more than 40 others injured.
In a press briefing, Sabrina Singh, Pentagon deputy press secretary, said that the Iran-backed Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah militia was responsible for the attack on Tower 22.
“We know that Iran is behind it. And certainly, as we’ve said before, Iran continues to arm and equip these groups to launch these attacks, and we will certainly hold them responsible,” she said, noting that eight of the 40 injured had to be evacuated for treatment.
Jordan’s government “condemned the terrorist attack that targeted an outpost on the border with Syria, killing three US soldiers,” in a statement issued via the Petra news agency.
Although the deaths at the Jordan-based US output were the first American military casualties since the start of the Israeli military offensive on Hamas-run Gaza in October last year, for Jordanians, the attack was anything but out of the ordinary.
With Iraq plagued by instability and sectarianism and Syria mired in a decade-long civil war, Jordan’s northern border region has become a breeding ground for militias.
Baraa Shiban, an associate fellow at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, says that those monitoring the region have been seeing “cross-border attacks for some time.”
He told Arab News: “If you are in that part of the world, the activity of these groups is known about. Press attention on them has increased since the American soldiers were killed, but the number of attacks has been largely constant.
“Those attacks are typically a series of skirmishes that sometimes escalate and sometimes die down, but they are always simmering in the background.”
Nor are the skirmishes simply the result of efforts to attack military installations, with the militias having turned Jordan into a major transit route for one of their key funding efforts, namely the trade in the multi-billion-dollar Syrian-made amphetamine Captagon.
“Jordan has become particularly concerned by the increase in drug-smuggling activities taking place across its borders,” Shiban said.
“These smuggling activities are essential for the groups if they are to fund their ongoing military assaults. If Jordan could successfully curb the activities, the groups would be starved of a major income stream that helps to keep them alive.”
The amounts involved are staggering: In December, Jordanian authorities seized 5 million pills and, with a single pill worth $12-25, a combined value of between $60-125 million.
Jordan has stepped up its no-tolerance policy for cross-border drug smuggling in recent years, last year announcing that it would use military force in Syria to curb drug trafficking across its borders.
In May 2023, Jordan carried out an airstrike in a village in Syria’s southern Sweida governorate, killing the so-called Captagon kingpin Merhi Al-Ramthan.
INNUMBERS
• 11m Estimated total population (2023)
• 31.42% Population below 14 years of age
• $102.8bn Real GDP (purchasing-power parity) (2021)
January’s drone attack marked out Kataib Hezbollah as the most prominent of a number of militias engaged in these cross-border activities, and making clear, through its principle of “velayat-e faqih” — or “Guardianship of the Jurist” — where it was receiving its directions.
David Rigoulet-Roze, a researcher at the French Institute for Strategic Analysis, has said that “velayat-e faqih” means that Kataib Hezbollah recognizes Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as its supreme commander.
Describing the group as “undoubtedly the most influential” in a collective known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, Rigoulet-Roze said that it was this banding together with Harakat Hezbollah Al-Nujaba and Hashd Al-Shaabi factions that made for the more potent threat.
Interestingly, the latter of these emerged in 2014 to support a Washington-led anti-Daesh coalition, contributing to Daesh’s territorial defeat in Iraq in 2017.
“There was an objective alliance between the coalition, the Americans, and Hashd militias against Daesh. The two fought on the same side. After 2017, these same groups found their Iranian — and therefore anti-American — DNA,” Rigoulet-Roze told France24.
Against the backdrop of Israel’s war on Gaza, however, Jordanian officials are increasingly concerned the skirmishes may evolve into something less sustainable for reasons connected to its own security.
This is unsurprising: One of Kataib Hezbollah’s main goals is to oust the US from the Middle East. Jordan not only houses some 3,000 US troops but in 2021 signed a new defense agreement with the Americans.
The Jordanian agreement was approved by royal decree, allowing US aircraft, personnel and vehicles free entry in exchange for $425 million in annual military aid.
The deal committed Jordan to provide logistical and other support for the estimated 3,000 US troops in the country.
Several members of Jordan’s parliament, especially members of the opposition Islamic Action Front, condemned the agreement, saying it gave away too many prerogatives to the US.
Jordan is one the biggest recipients of US aid, yet the subject of American troops and the bases they use in the country is a politically sensitive one.
Acknowledging the divisions over the defense agreement, Jawad Anani, Jordan’s former foreign minister, said there was “no chance” the deal with the US would be canceled given the present situation.
“There is a sense of resentment and displeasure (with the US), but there’s no way for Jordan to renege on its agreement,” he said in an interview. “Jordanians are equally unhappy with the UK, Germany, and France; we cannot break our relations with everyone.”
Jordan’s perception of threat from anti-US militias soared on March 18 after radar systems detected suspicious aerial activity from an unknown source along the Syrian border.
Witnesses told Reuters news agency that the incident resulted in jets being scrambled above the skies of the border city of Irbid, with an air force spokesperson noting a squadron had been sent to ensure airspace was not threatened.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy gave warning that the deadly drone attack of Jan. 28 marked something of a turning point in what had become the norm.
It described the incident as “a serious warning for Jordan’s national security for several interrelated reasons,” highlighting it as the first incident carried out by non-state actors against Jordanian territory and sovereignty, and against its American allies.
Shiban, RUSI associate fellow, casts doubt on the Washington Institute’s claim that the deadly attack on Tower 22 marked an escalation in the assault by Iranian proxies, saying that it was important to properly understand the groups involved.
“Many of these groups are erratic. When it comes to the day-to-day operations, they tend to clash with one another and with border security. In fact, who it is they are fighting can really depend on the day,” Shiban said.
“Yes, in general, they are united by a desire to push the US presence from the region, but this is much down to the fact that as long as the US has a presence, they are threatened.”
While not playing down the significance of Iranian influence on the activities of these groups, Shiban said that the militias that the Jordanian authorities fretted about were not completely under the sway of the government in Tehran.
Rather, he said there needed to be recognition that part of the problem was that there were a number of these militias that were now operating “semi-independently.”
As to what could be done to resolve this vexing issue, Shiban said Jordan has shown willingness to deal with the Syrian regime, noting that it is from Syria that most of these groups launch their attacks.
That said, he believes the Jordanians ultimately “don’t think Syria has the will or capacity to do anything about it.”
Amid calls for the US to provide Patriot missile defense systems, Saud Al-Sharafat, a former Jordanian brigadier-general, said that Jordan is “in an explosive region,” with fears that Iran and its well-armed militias could enter the Gaza conflict.
“Regardless of whether there were drones or missiles that were intercepted or fired or not, the risk of Jordan being caught in the crossfire can only increase if the war (in Gaza) continues and expands,” he said.