CAIRO: Egypt on Saturday said a new Israeli law giving Jews the exclusive right to self-determination in the country undermined the chances for peace in the Middle East and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
The law, which was passed on Thursday, has drawn rebuke from the EU and was denounced by the Palestinian Authority and Arab citizens of Israel as racist legislation.
“The Arab Republic of Egypt announces...its rejection of the law passed by the Israeli Knesset on the “national state for the Jewish people” law ... for its ramifications that consecrate the concept of occupation and racial segregation,” the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement.
“It undermines the chances for achieving peace and reaching a just and comprehensive solution for the Palestinian issue,” it said.
It said the law would also have a potential impact on the right of Palestinians displaced from their homes in 1948 when Israel was founded, and their descendants, to return to their homes under United Nations resolutions.
Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab country to forge a peace treaty with Israel under the US-sponsored Camp David accord that provided for the Jewish state to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula.
But relations between two countries remained lukewarm, with Egypt demanding that Israel quit other lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, including the Syrian Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem.
On Friday, Egypt’s Al-Azhar Mosque, the most prestigious Sunni Muslim institution, denounced the Israeli law calling it “a step that reflects repugnant racism“
Egypt says Israel’s Jewish nation-state law undermines Middle East peace
Egypt says Israel’s Jewish nation-state law undermines Middle East peace
- Egypt on Saturday said a new Israeli law giving Jews the exclusive right to self-determination in the country undermined the chances for peace
- The law, which was passed on Thursday, has drawn rebuke from the EU and was denounced by the Palestinian Authority
Syrian government says it controls prison in Raqqa with Daesh-linked detainees
- Prison holds detainees linked to Daesh, and witnessed clashes in its vicinity between advancing Syrian government forces and Kurdish fighters
Syria’s Interior Ministry said on Friday it had taken over Al-Aktan prison in the city of Raqqa in northeastern Syria, a facility that was formerly under the control of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The prison has been holding detainees linked to the militant group Daesh, and witnessed clashes in its vicinity this week between advancing Syrian government forces and the SDF.
It was not immediately clear how many Daesh detainees remain in Al-Aktan prison as the US military has started transferring up to 7,000 prisoners linked to the militant Islamist group from Syrian jails to neighboring Iraq. US officials say the detainees are citizens of many countries, including in Europe.
“Specialized teams were formed from the counter-terrorism department and other relevant authorities to take over the tasks of guarding and securing the prison and controlling the security situation inside it,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Under a sweeping integration deal agreed on Sunday, responsibility for prisons housing Daesh detainees was meant to be transferred to the Syrian government.
The SDF said on Monday it was battling Syrian government forces near Al-Aktan and that the seizure of the prison by the government forces “could have serious security repercussions that threaten stability and pave the way for a return to chaos and terrorism.”
The US transfer of Daesh prisoners follows the rapid collapse of Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria. Concerns over prison security intensified after the escape on Tuesday of roughly 200 low-level Daesh fighters from Syria’s Shaddadi prison. Syrian government forces later recaptured many of them.
