JERUSALEM: Israel said Tuesday it would grant legal residency to 4,000 Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
The move comes as a gesture to the Palestinian Authority that will allow people who have lived under severe restrictions for years to get official IDs.
It’s one of a series of gestures announced after a rare high-level meeting in August between Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas aimed at strengthening the PA, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank and coordinates with Israel on security.
Israel is trying to bolster the increasingly unpopular and autocratic PA in order to weaken its militant Hamas rivals, who rule the Gaza Strip. Other gestures include loaning some $155 million to the cash-strapped PA and authorizing an additional 15,000 permits for Palestinian laborers to work in Israel and its settlements.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state and has shown no interest in reviving peace talks, which stalled out more than a decade ago. Israel is also continuing to build and expand settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories it captured in the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for their future state.
But Israeli officials have vowed to take steps to improve the Palestinian economy and daily life in order to reduce frictions.
“The stronger the Palestinian Authority is, the weaker Hamas will be,” Gantz was quoted as saying after his meeting with Abbas. “And the greater its ability to govern is, the more security we’ll have and the less we’ll have to do.”
The Israeli defense body that oversees civilian affairs in the territories said it would approve the registration of 1,200 Palestinians who have been living in the West Bank for many years but are not listed in the Palestinian population registry. It will approve a change of address for 2,800 Palestinians who moved to the West Bank from Gaza prior to 2007, when Hamas seized power.
Hussein Al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official who serves as the liaison with Israel for civilian affairs, confirmed that a “first batch” of 4,000 names had been approved and said the PA was working to secure more.
Israel, which controls all access to the occupied West Bank, must approve any changes to the Palestinian population registry, which is administered by the PA. When the second Palestinian uprising broke out in 2000, Israel restricted new registrations to children under 16 with a resident parent.
That and other Israeli policies have left an estimated tens of thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza without legal status, severely limiting their freedom of movement. They include foreign nationals — mainly Palestinians from other countries — who married Palestinians in the territories and have families there.
Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank who are registered in Gaza are meanwhile at risk of deportation. Israel maintains dozens of checkpoints within and around the West Bank.
Human Rights Watch referred to Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian residency in a lengthy report earlier this year accusing it of the international crime of apartheid. The nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers living in the occupied West Bank have Israeli citizenship and face no similar restrictions.
Jessica Montell, the head of HaMoked, an Israeli rights group that assists Palestinians, said the latest move was welcome but did not go far enough.
Israel has previously approved tranches of applications for legal status as goodwill gestures to the PA. In 2008, it granted legal status to some 32,000 Palestinians following several petitions filed by HaMoked on behalf of families, Montell said.
“To my mind the real headline is tens of thousands of people are living with no status and Israel is not fulfilling its legal obligation to grant them status,” she said.
Israel gives legal status to 4K in gesture to Palestinians
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Israel gives legal status to 4K in gesture to Palestinians
- It's one of a series of gestures announced after a rare high-level meeting in August between Israeli Defense Minister and Palestinian President aimed at strengthening the PA
- Israel is trying to bolster the increasingly unpopular and autocratic PA in order to weaken its militant Hamas rivals
Syrian woman is jailed for life over Istanbul killer blast; over 20 others also get prison sentences
Syrian woman is jailed for life over Istanbul killer blast; over 20 others also get prison sentences
- Ahlam Albashir was given a total of seven life sentences by a Turkish court for carrying out the attack in Istiklal Avenue on Nov. 13, 2022
- Twenty others were given prison sentences ranging from four years to life
JEDDAH: A Syrian woman who planted a bomb that killed six people in Istanbul’s main shopping street 18 months ago was jailed for life on Friday.
Ahlam Albashir was given a total of seven life sentences by a Turkish court for carrying out the attack in Istiklal Avenue on Nov. 13, 2022. Six Turkish citizens, two members each from three families, died in the blast in the busy street packed with shoppers and tourists. About 100 people were injured.
More than 30 other people were accused in connection with the explosion. Four were released from prison on Friday, and a further 10 were ordered to be tried separately in their absence because they could not be found.
Twenty others were given prison sentences ranging from four years to life. Of those, six received aggravated life imprisonment for murder and “disrupting the unity and integrity of the state.”
Turkiye blamed Kurdish militants for the explosion, and said the order for the attack was given in Kobani in northern Syria, where Turkish forces have conducted operations against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in recent years.
The YPG and the outlawed PKK Kurdish separatist group, which has fought a decades-old insurgency against the Turkish state, denied involvement in the attack. No group admitted it.
Istanbul has been attacked in the past by Kurdish, Islamist and leftist militants. A wave of bombings and other attacks began nationwide when a ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK broke down in mid-2015.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the PKK’s conflict with Turkiye since the militant group took up arms in 1984. It is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkiye, the EU and the US.
1 case dismissed, 4 on hold in UN investigation into Oct. 7 allegations against UNRWA staff
- Investigators have been looking into cases of 12 agency workers accused by Israel in January of participating in attacks by Hamas, and 7 others named later
- 14 cases remain under investigation but the others were dismissed or suspended due to lack of evidence; UN’s internal investigators due to visit Israel again in May
NEW YORK CITY: UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday that the organization’s internal oversight body has been investigating 19 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees over allegations that they were affiliated with Hamas and other militant groups.
Israeli authorities alleged in January that 12 UNRWA workers participated in the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel.
The agency immediately cut ties with the named individuals, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in consultation with UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, ordered an independent review to evaluate the measures taken by the agency to ensure adherence to the principle of neutrality and how it responds to allegations of breaches of neutrality, particularly in the challenging context of the situation in Gaza.
In a wide-ranging report published this week, the investigators, led by Catherine Colonna, a former foreign minister of France, said Israeli authorities have yet to provide any evidence to support the allegations against UNRWA workers. They also noted that Israel had not previously raised concerns about any individuals named on the agency staffing lists it has been receiving since 2011.
They stated in the report: “In the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, UNRWA remains pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.
“As such, UNRWA is irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development. In addition, many view UNRWA as a humanitarian lifeline.”
Guterres also ordered a separate investigation by the UN’s own Office of Internal Oversight Services to determine the accuracy of the Israeli allegations. The mandate of the OIOS, an independent office within the UN Secretariat, is to assist the secretary-general in the handling of UN resources and staff through the provision of internal audit, investigation, inspection and evaluation services.
Dujarric said the 19 members of UNRWA staff under investigation included the 12 named by the Israeli allegations in January, whose contracts were immediately terminated, and seven others the UN subsequently received information about, five in March and two in April.
Of the 12 employees identified by Israeli authorities in January, eight remain under OIOS investigation, Dujarric said. One case was dismissed for lack of evidence and corrective administrative action is being explored, he added, and three cases were suspended because “the information provided by Israel is not sufficient for OIOS to proceed with an investigation. UNRWA is considering what administrative action to take while they are under investigation.”
Regarding the seven additional cases brought to the attention of the UN, one has been suspended “pending receipt of additional supporting evidence,” Dujarric said.
“The remaining six of those cases are currently under investigation by OIOS. OIOS has informed us that its investigators had traveled to Israel for discussions with the Israeli authorities and will undertake another visit during May.
“These discussions are continuing and have so far been productive and have enabled progress on the investigations.”
The initial allegations against some members of its staff threw the agency, which provides aid and other services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and across the region, into crisis. The US, the biggest single funder of UNRWA, and several other major donors put their contributions to the organization on hold.
In all, 16 UN member states suspended or paused donations, while others imposed conditions on further contributions, putting the future of the agency in doubt. Many of the countries, including Germany, later said their funding would resume. However, US donations remain on hold.
37 million tonnes of debris in Gaza could take years to clear: UN
- “We do know that we estimated 37 million tonnes of debris, which is approximately 300 kg per square meter,” Lodhammar added
GENEVA: There are some 37 million tonnes of debris to clear away in Gaza once the Israeli offensive is over, a senior official with the UN Mine Action Service said on Friday.
And unexploded ordnance buried in the rubble would complicate that work, said UNMAS’ Pehr Lodhammar, who has run mine programs in countries such as Iraq.
It was impossible to say how much of the ammunition fired in Gaza remained live, said Lodhammar.
“We know that typically there is a failure rate of at least 10 percent of land service ammunition,” he told journalists in Geneva.
“We do know that we estimated 37 million tonnes of debris, which is approximately 300 kg per square meter,” he added.
He said that starting from a hypothetical number of 100 trucks would take 14 years to clear away.
Lodhammar was speaking as UNMAS launched its 2023 annual report on Friday.
The war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas erupted when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
Also on Friday, the head of an aid group warned that an Israeli assault on southern Gaza’s Rafah area would spell disaster for civilians, not only in Gaza but across the Middle East,
Jan Egeland said the region faced a “countdown to an even bigger conflict.”
Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, also said that 1.3 million civilians seeking refuge in Rafah — including his aid group’s staff — were living in “indescribable fear” of an Israeli offensive.
Egeland urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to proceed with the operation.
“Netanyahu, stop this. It is a disaster not only for the Palestinians, it would be a disaster for Israel. You will have a stain on the Israeli conscience and history forever,” he said.
The NRC head spoke to Reuters in Lebanon, where he visited southern villages that he said were caught in a “horrific crossfire” between the Israeli military and Hezbollah.
“I am just scared that we haven’t learned from 2006,” said Egeland, referring to the month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel that was the two foes’ last bloody confrontation, during which he headed the UN’s relief operations.
“We do not need another war in the Middle East. At the moment, I’m feeling like (this is a) countdown to an even bigger conflict,” he said.
Turkiye’s Erdogan postpones tentative White House visit, sources say
- A new date will soon be set due to a change in Erdogan’s schedule, the Turkish official said
- The source familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unclear what prompted the postponement
WASHINGTON/ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has postponed a White House meeting with President Joe Biden, a source familiar with the situation and a Turkish official said on Friday of a visit that had been tentatively planned for May 9.
A White House spokesperson, while not confirming the May 9 date, said: “We look forward to hosting President Erdogan at the White House at a mutually convenient time, but we have not been able to align our schedules and do not have any visit to announce at this time.”
A new date will soon be set due to a change in Erdogan’s schedule, the Turkish official said, requesting anonymity. The source familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unclear what prompted the postponement.
The White House never formally announced the visit but a US official told Reuters in late March that following Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s visit to Washington, the White House offered and Ankara had accepted May 9 for a meeting between Biden and Erdogan.
That would have been the first bilateral visit to Washington since 2019 when Erdogan met with then President Donald Trump, a Republican. He and Biden have met a few times at international summits and spoken by phone since the Democratic US president took office in January 2021.
Ties between the US and Turkiye have been long strained by differences on a range of issues. While they have thawed since Ankara ratified Sweden’s NATO membership bid earlier this year, tensions persist over Syria and Russia and the war in Gaza.
Erdogan visited neighboring Iraq this week. Last weekend, he met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul, the first meeting between Erdogan and a Hamas delegation headed by Haniyeh since Israel began its military offensive in the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Netherlands will consider resuming support to Palestinian UNRWA agency
- The decision follows an investigation by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna
- The Colonna-led review of the agency’s neutrality concluded Israel had yet to back up its accusations
AMSTERDAM: The Dutch government on Friday said it would consider resuming funding for the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) in Gaza if the agency implements recommendations to strengthen its neutrality.
The decision follows an investigation by the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna released on Monday into whether some UNRWA employees were involved in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.
The Colonna-led review of the agency’s neutrality concluded Israel had yet to back up its accusations that hundreds of UNRWA staff were operatives in Gaza terrorist groups.
The Dutch government said it had already given its yearly donation to UNRWA in January, before the accusations against the agency came to light. It was one of several European countries that paused funding for the agency after the allegations were levied.
It said it did not foresee any additional donations in the near future, but would consider UNRWA as a potential partner if requests for aid were made.
