JERUSALEM: Israeli warplanes and artillery struck targets in Syria following rare rocket fire from the northeastern neighbor, as Jewish-Muslim tensions reached a peak Sunday at a volatile Jerusalem shrine with simultaneous religious rituals.
Thousands of Jewish worshippers gathered at the city’s Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, for a mass priestly benediction prayer service for the Passover holiday. At the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a walled esplanade above the Western Wall, hundreds of Palestinians performed prayers as part of observances during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Hundreds of Jews also visited the Al-Aqsa compound under heavy police guard Sunday, to whistles and religious chants from Palestinians protesting their presence.
Such tours by religious and nationalist Jews have increased in size and frequency over the years, and are viewed with suspicion by many Palestinians who fear that Israel plans one day to take over the site or partition it. Israeli officials say they have no intention of changing long-standing arrangements that allow Jews to visit, but not pray in the Muslim-administered site. However, the country is now governed by the most right-wing government in its history, with ultra-nationalists in senior positions.
Tensions have soared in the past week at the flashpoint shrine after an Israeli police raid on the mosque. On several occasions, Palestinians have barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque with stones and firecrackers, demanding the right to pray there overnight, something Israel has in the past only allowed during the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Police removed them by force, detaining hundreds and leaving dozens injured.
The violence at the shrine triggered rocket fire by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, starting Wednesday, and Israeli airstrikes targeted both areas.
Late on Saturday and early Sunday, militants in Syria fired rockets in two salvos toward Israel and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. A Damascus-based Palestinian group loyal to the Syrian government claimed responsibility for the first round of rockets, saying it was retaliating for the Al-Aqsa raids.
In the first salvo, one rocket landed in a field in the Golan Heights. Fragments of another destroyed missile fell into Jordanian territory near the Syrian border, Jordan’s military reported. In the second round, two of the rockets crossed the border into Israel, with one being intercepted and the second landing in an open area, the Israeli military said.
Israel responded with artillery fire into the area in Syria from where the rockets were fired. Later, the military said Israeli fighter jets attacked Syrian army sites, including a compound of Syria’s 4th Division and radar and artillery posts.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the violence in a telephone call with Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog late Saturday, telling Herzog that Muslims could not remain silent about the “provocations and threats” against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and said the hostilities that have spread to Gaza and Lebanon should not be allowed to escalate further.
In addition to the cross-border fighting, three people were killed over the weekend in Palestinian attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
The funeral for two British-Israeli sisters, Maia and Rina Dee, who were killed in a shooting was scheduled for Sunday at a cemetery in the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion in the occupied West Bank.
An Italian tourist, Alessandro Parini, 35, a lawyer from Rome, had just arrived in the city a few hours earlier with some friends for a brief Easter holiday. He was killed Friday in a suspected car-ramming on Tel Aviv’s beachside promenade.
Over 90 Palestinians and have been killed by Israeli fire so far this year, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Palestinian attacks on Israelis have killed 19 people in that time. All but one were civilians.
Tensions build around Jerusalem shrine after Syria rockets
https://arab.news/2hfs4
Tensions build around Jerusalem shrine after Syria rockets
- Thousands of Jewish worshippers gathered at the city’s Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray
Israeli military finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza, including Shani Louk, killed at music festival
The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter
JERUSALEM: Israeli military says its troops in Gaza found the bodies of three Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk.
A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world and brought to light the scale of the militants’ attack on communities in southern Israel.
The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said all three were killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival, an outdoor dance party near the Gaza border, and their bodies taken into the Palestinian territory.
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more. Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
Iran arrests 3 Europeans at ‘Satanist’ gathering along with 260 others, Tasnim says
- Those detained comprised 146 men and 115 women and that alcohol and psychedelic drugs were seized.
DUBAI: Iranian security forces have arrested more than 260 people, including three European nationals, at a “Satanist” gathering west of the capital Tehran, the semi-official new agency Tasnim reported on Friday.
“Satanist network broken up in Tehran, arrests of three European nationals,” Tasnim wrote, adding that those detained comprised 146 men and 115 women and that alcohol — banned under Iran’s Islamic laws — and psychedelic drugs were seized.
The report did not give the nationality of the Europeans.
Spain PM will Wednesday announce date to recognize Palestinian state
- Sanchez said in March that Spain and Ireland, along with Slovenia and Malta had agreed to take the first steps toward recognition of a Palestinian state
MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Friday he will on Wednesday announce the date on which Madrid will recognize a Palestinian state along with other nations.
“We are in the process of coordinating with other countries,” he said during an interview with private Spanish television station La Sexta when asked if this step would be taken on Tuesday as announced by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Sanchez said in March that Spain and Ireland, along with Slovenia and Malta had agreed to take the first steps toward recognition of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, seeing a two-state solution as essential for lasting peace.
Borrell told Spanish public radio last week that Spain, Ireland and Slovenia planned to symbolically recognize a Palestinian state on May 21, saying he had been given this date by Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said Tuesday that Dublin was certain to recognize Palestinian statehood by the end of the month but the “specific date is still fluid.”
So far, 137 of the 193 UN member states have recognized a Palestinian state, according to figures provided by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
Despite the growing number of EU countries in favor of such a move, neither France nor Germany support the idea. Western powers have long argued such recognition should only happen as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.
Israel army says civilians torched Gaza-bound aid truck in West Bank
- Driver as well as Israel soldiers were injured in the attack
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Friday that “dozens of Israeli civilians” set fire the previous evening to an aid truck in the occupied West Bank headed for war-torn Gaza.
Local media reported that Israeli settlers were behind the attack, which the army said injured the driver as well as Israeli soldiers.
The incident took place near Kokhav Hashahar, an Israeli settlement in the central West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
According to the army, Israeli soldiers intervened to “separate the Israeli civilians from the attacked Israeli driver” and provided medical assistance.
The group then “responded with violence,” and three Israeli soldiers were “lightly injured,” the army said, condemning “all forms of violence against its soldiers and security forces.”
On Monday, dozens of people blocked and vandalized a convoy of aid trucks driving to the Gaza Strip.
Israeli media identified them as part of a far-right group opposed to allowing aid into Gaza.
The trucks were attacked in Israel, shortly after passing through the Tarqumiya checkpoint from the West Bank.
Images posted on social media show Israeli soldiers watching on as the attackers destroy the aid.
The latest incident comes just hours after the army said on Thursday that the Tarqumia and Beitunia checkpoints “now also function as inspection points for aid” destined for Gaza.
Jordanian authorities said “Israeli extremists” in the West Bank attacked two aid convoys sent on May 1 from Jordan and another convoy of 35 trucks sent on May 7.
Israel has been fighting their bloodiest war ever in Gaza since the Palestinian militants attacked Israel on October 7.
Despite the United Nations warning of looming famine, Israeli authorities have tightly controlled much needed humanitarian aid into Gaza over the course of more than seven months of war.
Very little aid has made it through Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, and Rafah crossing has been completely shut since Israeli troops took control of the area last week.
Israel has vowed to defeat remaining Hamas forces in the southern city of Rafah, which it says is the last bastion of the group whose October 7 attack triggered the war.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
More than 35,303 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the war broke out, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Saudi Arabia, UAE ‘the locomotives of the region’ says French trade commissioner
- Vision Golfe returns for a second edition June 4-5 at the French Ministry of Economy in Paris
- The benchmark event between France and the Gulf countries aims to promote trade and economic relations
DUBAI: After the success of its first edition, Vision Golfe returns for a second edition June 4-5 at the Ministry of Economy, Finance, Industry and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty in Paris.
The benchmark event between France and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries aims to promote trade and economic relations, building on a long-standing relationship between France and the GCC states, particularly between France and Saudi Arabia.
“Between France and the GCC countries … we have a long story of friendship. We build bridges together based on mutual comprehension, respect, mutual interest, ambition, and our political bilateral relation is absolutely at the top,” said Axel Baroux, trade and invest commissioner of Business France Middle East, in an interview with Arab News in French.
“We have a great and solid commercial and investment relationship, but I think that we can do even more,” he added.
Vision Golfe is a platform to promote business cooperation in markets with high growth potential, and an opportunity to meet key economic players: ministers, start-ups, and senior executives, among others.
“Vision Golfe is a tool, the starting point for negotiations and discussions. Discussions continue throughout the year … our trade and investment grew last year by almost 8 percent,” declared Baroux.
“If I take the figures of the GCC investment in France, we are reaching €14 billion ($15.178 billion) which is exactly €13.7 billion,” he added, while pointing out that the figure is underestimated for not considering indirect investments.
Despite the challenges facing the global economy, Gulf countries continue to offer an environment conducive to investment and talent attraction, leveraging national policies focused on economic diversification, sustainable development, and energy transition.This creates a favourable atmosphere for the establishment of companies in various sectors such as energy and new technologies, as well as sectors such as healthcare, education, retail, and tourism.
As the two largest markets in a region marked by considerable growth in trade, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are today “the locomotives of the region,” Baroux says.
This explains the rise in French companies setting up operations and participating in major projects and trade in the Gulf.
Baroux highlighted his participation in a delegation of French companies in Saudi Arabia, with over 120 companies taking part in the event organized by Business France and the MEDEF, in the presence of the director general of Business France, Laurent Saint Martin, French foreign trade advisors, and Bruno Bonnell, the secretary-general for Investment FRANCE 2030.
“We were admirably received. Agreements were signed with STC and Business France. We also visited the PIF, and had discussions with MISA,” he added.
The UAE also offers opportunities for French companies across sectors, with “more than 600 French companies on ground … Translating into direct employment, projects and a solid economic relationship,” according to Baroux.
“We have very strong, very solid bilateral economic relations between France and the GCC and it is a reason why we expect Vision Golfe to be the annual rendez-vous, the annual meeting, where all the companies from the GCC and from France can meet together in Paris,” he added.
HIGHLIGHTS
It aims to present success stories of major partnerships that contribute to the strategies of Gulf countries.
The program includes an opening speach by Business France CEO Laurent Saint Martin, in the presence of ministers from France and the GCC, and a panel addressing “The Gulf at the crossroads of Asia and Europe” to kick off two days of panels and meetings.
Thematic and sector-specific discussions and round tables are on the agenda, with topics including but not limited to:
• Converging national strategies
• Building sustainable partnerships
• How to invest and set up a business in the Gulf
• Energy for the future: sustainable energy and resource management after COP28
• Cooperation and investment opportunities in various sectors
• France as Europe’s most attractive destination for foreign direct investment
Economic diversification, innovation, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, and transport development are among the themes addressed during the second edition.
The French touch and know-how will also be in the spotlight, in the presence of a number of guests and speakers, such as Jean Yves LeDrian, chair of the French Agency for the Development of AlUla, the CEO of NIDLP Suliman Almazroua, the secretary-general of the UAE International Investors Council, Jamal Saif Al-Jarwan, with the participation of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, Mohamed Bin Zayed University, and Kuwaiti and Qatari groups to state a few.
“Vision Golfe 2023 was a real success, and of course, I expect more for Vision Golfe 2024. More B2B meetings, more partnerships, even more interaction between French companies and GCC companies. We will have this year at Vision Golfe 2024 some key agreements that will be signed, during the session,” said Baroux.
