AMMAN: Jordan said on Sunday Israel had asked for consultations on a special land deal agreed in their peace treaty that the Jordanian government wants to end.
Under the peace treaty, two border areas were recognized to be under Jordanian sovereignty but gave Israel special provisions to use the land and allow Israelis free access.
Jordan formally notified Israel two weeks ago it would not renew the 25-year deal over Baquora where the Yarmouk River flows into the Jordan River and in the Ghumar area in the southern Wadi Araba desert where Israeli farmers have large plantations.
Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Reuters after the decision the Kingdom was waiting for Israel to invoke a provision in the peace treaty to hold consultations after giving notice before the deadline.
Petra state news agency quoted government spokeswoman Jumana Ghunaimat as saying Jordan had received the Israeli request but did not say when the discussions would begin.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Jordan’s move and said his country sought to enter negotiations on the possibility of extending the arrangement.
The 25-year special regime would be automatically renewed unless either of the parties notified the other a year before expiry that it wished to terminate the agreement.
Safadi said the deal, which was signed in November 1994, had been conceived as a temporary arrangement from the start. The kingdom had contemplated the move for a while before the Nov. 10 deadline.
King Abdullah, who stressed the territories were Jordanian lands and would remain so, said the move was made in the “national interest” at a period of regional turmoil.
Jordan is one of only two Arab states that has a peace treaty with Israel and the two countries have a long history of close security ties. But the treaty is unpopular in Jordan where pro-Palestinian sentiment is widespread.
Jordan says Israel wants to discuss border land deals
Jordan says Israel wants to discuss border land deals
At least 100 children killed in Gaza since ceasefire: UN
- The UN children’s agency UNICEF said that at least 60 boys and 40 girls had been killed
GENEVA: At least 100 children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and ground forces in Gaza since the start of a tenuous ceasefire three months ago, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF said that at least 60 boys and 40 girls had been killed in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory since early October.
“More than 100 children have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire,” UNICEF spokesman James Elder told reporters in Geneva.
“That’s roughly a girl or a boy killed here every day during a ceasefire,” he said, speaking from Gaza City.
“These children are killed from airstrikes, drone strikes, including suicide drones. They’re killed from tank shelling. They’re killed from live ammunition. They’re killed from quad copters.
“We are at 100 — no doubt,” he said, adding that the true number was likely higher.
“A ceasefire that slows the bombs is progress but one that still buries children is not enough.”
AFP has sought a response from the Israeli military.
An official at Gaza’s health ministry, which maintains casualty records, has reported a higher figure of 165 children killed during the tenuous ceasefire, out of a total 442 fatalities.
“Additionally, seven children have died from exposure to cold since the beginning of this year,” Zaher Al-Wahidi, Director of the Computer Department at the Ministry of Health, told AFP.
Elder stressed that the ongoing Israeli attacks came after more than two years of war which has “left life for Gaza’s children unimaginably hard.”
“They still live in fear. The psychological damage remains untreated, and it’s becoming deeper and harder to heal the longer this goes on,” he said.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the beginning of the war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged in the relentless air and ground offensive, according to UN data.
On January 1, Israel suspended 37 international aid agencies from accessing the Gaza Strip, despite what the UN said at the time was an “outrageous” move.
“Blocking international NGOs, blocking any humanitarian aid... that means blocking life-saving assistance,” Elder stressed on Monday.
While UNICEF had managed to significantly increase aid entering the densely populated strip since October, he stressed: “You need partners on the ground, and it (the aid) still doesn’t meet the need.”
“It’s impossible to overstate just how much still is required to be done here.”
He also insisted: “When you’ve got key NGOs banned from delivering humanitarian aid and from bearing witness, and when foreign journalists are barred” it begs the question if the aim is “restricting scrutiny of suffering of children.”
