JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday it had expanded the fishing zone off Gaza and would allow additional imports into the blockaded Palestinian territory following “recent security calm.”
The Jewish state regularly restricts fishing and imports for Gazans in response to unrest, including during an 11-day conflict in May that saw Israel launch hundreds of airstrikes on the enclave and Hamas fire thousands of rockets at Israel.
“In light of the recent security calm ... the fishing zone in the Gaza Strip will be extended from 9 to 12 nautical miles,” said a statement from the Israeli military branch responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories (COGAT).
The statement added that imports of medical equipment, fishing supples, certain industrial materials and textiles will also be allowed into Gaza.
Gazan agricultural products and textiles have been cleared for export, COGAT said, noting the new measures are contingent on “the continued preservation of security stability.”
There has been sporadic unrest since a ceasefire ended the May conflict, with incendiary balloons launched from Gaza and Israeli reprisal airstrikes, but no casualties have been reported.
Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since 2007, the year Hamas took power in the strip.
In another development, Israel was accused of stealing Palestinians funds.
On Sunday, Israel’s Security Cabinet froze nearly $200 million in tax transfers to the Palestinians that it said represented the amount of money the Palestinians transferred to the families of alleged attackers last year.
Qadri Abu Bakr, head of the Palestinian commission for detainees’ affairs, calling the Israeli decision a “crime and piracy.”
The Palestinian news agency Wafa said that President Mahmoud Abbas spoke by telephone with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog.
It said Abbas called for a “comprehensive calm” in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, and called for steps that would create conditions for a “achieving a just and comprehensive peace.”
The statement made no mention of the frozen tax transfers.
In its decision, the Security Cabinet approved a recommendation by Defense Minister Benny Gantz to freeze some 597 million shekels — or roughly $180 million — for what it called “indirect support of terrorism” in 2020.
It said the funds will be frozen on a monthly basis out of payments that Israel transfers to the Palestinians.
For the Palestinians, the families of attackers are widely seen as victims of a half century of Israeli occupation. The Palestinians say that many Palestinians are unfairly held by Israel and that the number of prisoners involved in deadly attacks is a small percentage of those aided by the fund.
Under interim peace agreements, Israel collects hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes for the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. The tax transfers are a key source of funding for the Palestinians.
Israel has long objected to the Palestinian “martyrs fund,” which provides stipends to thousands of families that have had relatives killed, wounded or imprisoned in the conflict with Israel.
The Palestinians say the payments are a type of welfare system meant to assist families affected by the conflict. But Israel says such payments serve as rewards and incentives for violence.
Israel expands Gaza fishing zone, allows more imports
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Israel expands Gaza fishing zone, allows more imports
- Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since 2007, the year Hamas took power in the strip
Syria moves military reinforcements east of Aleppo after telling Kurds to withdraw
- The United States, which for years has supported Kurdish fighters but also backs Syria’s new authorities, urged all parties to “avoid actions that could further escalate tensions” in a statement by the US military’s Central Command chief
ALEPPO: Syria’s army was moving reinforcements east of Aleppo city on Wednesday, a day after it told Kurdish forces to withdraw from the area following deadly clashes last week.
The deployment comes as Syria’s Islamist-led government seeks to extend its authority across the country, but progress has stalled on integrating the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and forces into the central government under a deal reached in March.
The United States, which for years has supported Kurdish fighters but also backs Syria’s new authorities, urged all parties to “avoid actions that could further escalate tensions” in a statement by the US military’s Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper.
On Tuesday, Syrian state television published an army statement with a map declaring a large area east of Aleppo city a “closed military zone” and said “all armed groups in this area must withdraw to east of the Euphrates” River.
The area, controlled by Kurdish forces, extends from near Deir Hafer, around 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Aleppo, to the Euphrates about 30 kilometers further east, as well as toward the south.
State news agency SANA published images on Wednesday showing military reinforcements en route from the coastal province of Latakia, while a military source on the ground, requesting anonymity, said reinforcements were arriving from both Latakia and the Damascus region.
Both sides reported limited skirmishes overnight.
An AFP correspondent on the outskirts of Deir Hafer reported hearing intermittent artillery shelling on Wednesday, which the military source said was due to government targeting of positions belonging to the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
‘Declaration of war’
The SDF controls swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which it captured during Syria’s civil war and the fight against the Daesh group.
On Monday, Syria accused the SDF of sending reinforcements to Deir Hafer and said it would send its own personnel there in response.
Kurdish forces on Tuesday denied any build-up of their personnel and accused the government of attacking the town, while state television said SDF sniper fire there killed one person.
Cooper urged “a durable diplomatic resolution through dialogue.”
Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration, said that government forces were “preparing themselves for another attack.”
“The real intention is a full-scale attack” against Kurdish-held areas, she told an online press conference, accusing the government of having made a “declaration of war” and breaking the March agreement on integrating Kurdish forces.
Syria’s government took full control of Aleppo city over the weekend after capturing its Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods and evacuating fighters there to Kurdish-controlled areas in the northeast.
Both sides traded blame over who started the violence last week that killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands.
PKK, Turkiye
On Tuesday in Qamishli, the main Kurdish city in the country’s northeast, thousands of people demonstrated against the Aleppo violence, with some burning pictures of Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, an AFP correspondent said, while shops were shut in a general strike.
Some protesters carried Kurdish flags and banners in support of the SDF.
“Leave, Jolani!” they shouted, referring to President Sharaa by his former nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani.
“This government has not honored its commitments toward any Syrians,” said cafe owner Joudi Ali.
Other protesters burned portraits of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, whose country has lauded the Syrian government’s Aleppo operation “against terrorist organizations.”
Turkiye has long been hostile to the SDF, seeing it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a major threat along its southern border.
Last year, the PKK announced an end to its long-running armed struggle against the Turkish state and began destroying its weapons, but Ankara has insisted that the move include armed Kurdish groups in Syria.
On Tuesday, the PKK called the “attack on the Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo” an attempt to sabotage peace efforts between it and Ankara.
A day earlier, Ankara’s ruling party levelled the same accusation against Kurdish fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 45 civilians and 60 soldiers and fighters from both sides killed in the Aleppo violence.
Aleppo civil defense official Faysal Mohammad said Tuesday that 50 bodies had been recovered from the Kurdish-majority neighborhoods after the fighting.
