RAMALLAH/GAZA: Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza on Thursday mostly dismissed a change in Israeli government, saying the nationalist leader due to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely pursue the same right-wing agenda.
Naftali Bennett, a former official in Israel’s main West Bank settler organization, would be Israel’s new leader under a patchwork coalition struck on Wednesday.
“There is no difference between one Israeli leader and another,” said Ahmed Rezik, 29, a government worker in Gaza.
“They are good or bad for their nation. And when it comes to us, they are all bad, and they all refuse to give the Palestinians their rights and their land.”
Bassem Al-Salhi, a representative for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said Bennett was no less extreme than Netanyahu, adding: “He will make sure to express how extreme he is in the government.”
Hamas, the Islamist group which controls the Gaza Strip, said it made no difference who governs Israel.
“Palestinians have seen dozens of Israeli governments throughout history, right, left, center, as they call it. But all of them have been hostile when it comes to the rights of our Palestinian people and they all had hostile policies of expansionism,” spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
In what would be a first in Israel, a governing coalition would include an Islamist party elected by members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab minority, who are Palestinian by culture and heritage and Israeli by citizenship.
Its leader, Mansour Abbas, said the coalition agreement would bring more than 53 billion shekels ($16 billion) to improve infrastructure and combat violent crime in Arab towns..
But he has been criticized in the West Bank and Gaza for siding with what they see as the enemy.
“He is a traitor. What will he do when they ask him to vote on launching a new war on Gaza?” said Badri Karam, 21, in Gaza.
“Will he accept it, being a part of the killing of Palestinians?”
Palestinians see little difference in old and new Israeli leaders
https://arab.news/mqd7k
Palestinians see little difference in old and new Israeli leaders
- Naftali Bennett would be Israel's new leader under a patchwork coalition struck on Wednesday
- "There is no difference between one Israeli leader and another," said Ahmed Rezik, a government worker in Gaza
Syria opens aid corridor to Kurdish-majority town
- The Syrian Democratic Forces find themselves restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast and Kobani in the north
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said on Sunday it had opened a humanitarian corridor to the Kurdish-majority town of Kobani, filled with displaced people, as a UN convoy carrying lifesaving aid headed there.
The aid came as the Defense Ministry announced a 15-day extension of the ceasefire across all fronts of Syrian Arab Army operations, effective at 11 p.m. on Jan. 24.
The ministry said the ceasefire extension comes in support of the US operation to transfer Daesh detainees from prisons in Syria to Iraq.
The Operations Command of the Syrian Arab Army warned the Syrian Democratic Forces and PKK militias against continuing their violations and provocations.
It also announced the opening of two humanitarian corridors, one to Kobani and another in nearby Hasakah province, to allow “the entry of aid.”
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the UN’s refugee agency in Syria, said on X that “thanks to the cooperation with the Syrian government ... a convoy of 24 trucks carrying essential food, relief items, and diesel” departed for Kobani “to deliver life-saving and winter assistance to civilians affected by the hostilities.”
The Syrian Democratic Forces find themselves restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast and Kobani in the north.
Kobani, which Kurdish forces liberated from a lengthy siege by Daesh in 2015, became a symbol of their first major victory against the terrorists.
The Syrian Petroleum Company said it had begun transporting crude oil from the Jbessa oil field in eastern Hasakah province to the Baniyas refinery on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
The move follows the arrival of the first shipment of crude oil from Deir Ezzor fields to storage facilities in Baniyas, where it will be processed.
