UAE calls for temporary international mission in post-war Gaza

Reem bint Ebrahim Al-Hashimy, UAE minister of state for international cooperation, said the mission would help establish law and order and respond to the humanitarian crisis in post-war Gaza. (File/AFP)
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Updated 26 July 2024
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UAE calls for temporary international mission in post-war Gaza

  • She stressed on the US significant role in the mission success
  • The mission would pave the way to reunite Gaza and the occupied West Bank under a single, legitimate Palestinian Authority

ABU DHABI: The UAE has called for a temporary international mission to lay the foundation for a new governance in Gaza after the war ends.

In a statement posted by the UAE state news agency on Thursday, Reem bint Ebrahim Al-Hashimy, the country’s minister of state for international cooperation, said the mission would help establish law and order and respond to the humanitarian crisis in post-war Gaza.

The mission should be deployed at the invitation of the Palestinian government, led by “a credible and independent new prime minister” to address the needs of the Palestinian people and rebuild Gaza, Al-Hashimy said.

It would pave the way to reunite Gaza and the occupied West Bank under a single, legitimate Palestinian Authority.

Al-Hashimy said that a return to the status quo before Oct. 7 would not achieve sustainable peace in Gaza, which is imperative for regional stability.

She urged the US to lead international efforts to rebuild Gaza, reach the two-state solution, and facilitate Palestinian reforms, all of which would contribute to the success of the international mission.

Israel, she said, must also do its part in following international humanitarian law.

“Gaza cannot recover if it continues to live under a blockade, or if the legitimate Palestinian Authority is not allowed to take on its responsibilities and to stop withholding its financing,” she said, highlighting the need to halt the construction of illegal Israeli settlements and end the violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Al-Hashimy reaffirmed the UAE’s support for international efforts to achieve the two-state solution.

“The outcome we endeavor to achieve extends beyond the Gaza Strip and necessitates comprehensive cooperation. Moreover, establishing peace is to everyone’s advantage on a broader scale, benefiting the entire Middle East and the global community,” she said.


US warns Israel to boost humanitarian aid into Gaza or risk losing weapons funding

Updated 5 sec ago
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US warns Israel to boost humanitarian aid into Gaza or risk losing weapons funding

  • Israel has killed over 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry
  • The three hospitals operating minimally in northern Gaza are facing “dire shortages” of fuel, trauma supplies, medications and blood, and while meals are being delivered each day, food is dwindling, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration has warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within the next 30 days or it could risk losing access to US weapons funding.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned their Israeli counterparts in a letter dated Sunday that the changes must occur. The letter, which restates US policy toward humanitarian aid and arms transfers, was sent amid deteriorating conditions in northern Gaza and an Israeli airstrike on a hospital tent site in central Gaza that killed at least four people and burned others.
A similar letter that Blinken sent to Israeli officials in April led to more humanitarian assistance getting to the Palestinian territory, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday. But that has not lasted.
“In fact, it’s fallen by over 50 percent from where it was at its peak,” Miller said at a briefing. Blinken and Austin “thought it was appropriate to make clear to the government of Israel that there are changes that they need to make again, to see that the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up from the very, very low levels that it is at today.”
For Israel to continue qualifying for foreign military financing, the level of aid getting into Gaza must increase to at least 350 trucks a day, Israel must institute additional humanitarian pauses and provide increased security for humanitarian sites, Austin and Blinken said in their letter. They said Israel had 30 days to respond to the requirements.
“The letter was not meant as a threat,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “The letter was simply meant to reiterate the sense of urgency we feel and the seriousness with which we feel it, about the need for an increase, a dramatic increase in humanitarian assistance.”
An Israeli official confirmed a letter had been delivered but did not discuss the contents. That official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a diplomatic matter, confirmed the US had raised “humanitarian concerns” and was putting pressure on Israel to speed up the flow of aid into Gaza.
The letter, which an Axios reporter posted a copy of online, was sent during a period of growing frustration in the administration that despite repeated and increasingly vocal requests to scale back offensive operations against Hamas, Israel’s bombardment has led to unnecessary civilian deaths and risks plunging the region into a much wider war.
“We are particularly concerned that recent actions by the Israeli government, including halting commercial imports, denying or impeding 90 percent of humanitarian movements” and other restrictions have kept aid from flowing, Blinken and Austin said.
The Biden administration is increasing its calls for its ally and biggest recipient of US military aid to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza while assuring that America’s support for Israel is unwavering just before the US presidential election in three weeks.
Funding for Israel has long carried weight in US politics, and Biden said this month that “no administration has helped Israel more than I have.”
Humanitarian aid groups fear that Israeli leaders may approve a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas, which could trap hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are unwilling or unable to leave their homes without food, water, medicine and fuel.
UN humanitarian officials said last week that aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months. The three hospitals operating minimally in northern Gaza are facing “dire shortages” of fuel, trauma supplies, medications and blood, and while meals are being delivered each day, food is dwindling, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
“There is barely any food left to distribute, and most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in just days without any additional fuel,” he said.
The UN humanitarian office reported that Israeli authorities facilitated just one of its 54 efforts to get to the north this month, Dujarric said. He said 85 percent of the requests were denied, with the rest impeded or canceled for logistical or security reasons.
COGAT, the Israeli body facilitating aid crossings into Gaza, denied that crossings to the north have been closed.
US officials said the letter was sent to remind Israel of both its obligations under international humanitarian law and of the Biden administration’s legal obligation to ensure that the delivery of American humanitarian assistance should not be hindered, diverted or held up by a recipient of US military aid.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas has killed over 42,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians but has said a little more than half the dead are women and children. The Hamas attacks killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and militants abducted another 250.
The United States has spent a record of at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University’s Costs of War project.
That aid has enabled Israel to purchase billions of dollars worth of munitions it has used in its operations against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. However, many of those strikes also have killed civilians in both areas.
 

 


Turkish govt delays tax plan to fund defense industry

Updated 2 min 55 sec ago
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Turkish govt delays tax plan to fund defense industry

  • The bill stipulated that people with a credit card limit of at least 100,000 liras (nearly $3,000) would have to pay an annual 750 lira ($22) in tax from January to bolster the defense industry

ISTANBUL: The Turkish government on Tuesday postponed until 2025 a parliamentary debate on a proposed tax on credit cards, which it sought to fund the arms industry as conflict rages in its neighborhood.
Indignant Turks, who already face double-digit inflation, called their banks to lower their credit limits after the governing AKP party submitted the tax bill to parliament on Friday.
After the public outcry, the AKP announced Tuesday that it was delaying debating the bill until next year.
“There were certain objections from our citizens, we will examine all of this in detail,” said the AKP’s parliamentary group chairman, Abdullah Guler.
“We have postponed our discussions and we will reconsider, after the budget, if there are some points to change or remove,” he said.
The proposed legislation came as Israel’s conflicts with Tehran-backed Islamist militants in Gaza and Lebanon, and missile strikes by Iran, have raised global concerns that a broader war could erupt in the Middle East.
“Our country has no choice but to increase its deterrent power. There’s war in our region right now. We are in a troubled neighborhood,” Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek told private broadcaster NTV earlier on Tuesday.
The bill stipulated that people with a credit card limit of at least 100,000 liras (nearly $3,000) would have to pay an annual 750 lira ($22) in tax from January to bolster the defense industry.
“If we increase our deterrent power, then our ability to protect against fire in the region will increase,” Simsek had said, though he added that the bill was in the hands of parliament and that the AKP, could “re-evaluate” it.
When he proposed the tax on Friday, Guler said that Israel’s next target would be Turkiye, an argument often cited by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A vocal critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza and Lebanon, Erdogan doubled down on the threat posed by Israel when addressing a conference hosted by his AKP party on Tuesday.
“Even if there are those who cannot see the danger approaching our country... we see the risk and take all kind of measures,” he said.
Turkiye’s defense industry has enjoyed a boom in recent years but Simsek said the sector still needed a boost.
The defense industry is planning to invest in 1,000 projects, including an air defense system that would protect Turkiye from missile assaults, Simsek said.
Turkiye allocated 90 billion lira from the budget to fund the defense industry last year, he added.
“This year, we increased it to 165 billion lira. Maybe we will need to double this even more.”
Turkiye’s defense companies signed contracts in 2023 worth a total of $10.2 billion, according to Haluk Gorgun, the head of Turkiye’s state Defense Industry Agency (SSB).
The top 10 Turkish defense exporters contributed nearly 80 percent of total export revenue, he said.
Sales of Turkish Baykar drones, used in Nagorno-Karabakh or Ukraine, amounted to $1.8 billion.
Last week, parliament held a closed-door session for the government to explain why it saw Israel as a potential threat, but the opposition said it was not convinced.
The spokesman for Turkiye’s main opposition CHP party, Deniz Yucel, said Monday that the government was exploiting nationalist feelings to sweep an “economic crisis” under the carpet.
Inflation has spiralled over the past two years, peaking at an annual rate of 85.5 percent in October 2022.
Official data showed it had slowed to 49.4 percent in September.
“The AKP is trying to create a fake ‘foreign threat and war agenda’ with the rhetoric of ‘Israel may attack us’,” Yucel said.
“We know and see that they are trying to disguise the economic crisis they caused.”


War-torn Gaza a ‘constant peak emergency’: UN official

Updated 41 min 31 sec ago
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War-torn Gaza a ‘constant peak emergency’: UN official

  • They practically have no access to fresh food — just staples provided by UNRWA and WFP,” Renard said, referring to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees

JERUSALEM: The Gaza Strip remains in a state of “constant peak emergency,” a UN official said, as aid groups continue to face severe challenges in delivering assistance after more than a year of war.
“Every day is a struggle to make sure that we can provide our assistance,” Antoine Renard, head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in the occupied Palestinian territories, told AFP shortly after a visit to war-torn Gaza.
Vast areas of Gaza have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault on the territory after the October 7 Hamas attack last year sparked the war.
Israel has been intensifying operations in the north of the besieged Palestinian territory, where the UN has warned hundreds of thousands of people are trapped.
“People in the north of Gaza are relying solely on assistance. They practically have no access to fresh food — just staples provided by UNRWA and WFP,” Renard said, referring to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
He said that most residents have survived so far on tinned food, a situation he describes as “unsustainable.”
“It’s unique to actually have one year into a war where people are just depending on processed food that is coming from cans,” he said.
“We face issues with crossings. We face issues in having our assistance not being under bombs,” he added, noting that looting of the goods once in the territory was also a problem.
Despite a desperate need to increase the amount of aid going in, he said no WFP food aid has managed to reach northern Gaza since October 1, requesting that “crossings be reopened.”
The Israeli military said it was facilitating the transfer of humanitarian aid into northern Gaza, including fuel for hospitals and allowing the transfer of patients from one hospital to another.

According to the military, some 30 trucks carrying flour and food from the WFP entered northern Gaza through the Erez West crossing on Monday.
James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, on Tuesday said Gaza appeared to be facing the worst restrictions on aid yet.
“August was the lowest amount of humanitarian aid that came into the Gaza Strip of any full month since the war broke out,” he said.
Renard said access to fresh food in southern Gaza is slightly better, with some vegetables and fruits available, but most people in the area still lack access to dairy, meat or fish.
Most goods, however, remained out of reach for many residents with shortages causing prices to skyrocket.
“The price of a can has just doubled now again on the market in the south of Gaza,” he said.
Bread remains one of the few fresh staples available to Gazans, he said, with WFP-assisted bakeries providing a loaf of bread to 2.1 million people daily.
“For many in Gaza, this is the only fresh food they have,” Renard added, calling them a “lifeline for the entire population.”
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s attack on October 7 last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 42,344 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations has described as reliable.
 

 


Jordanian minister and US secretary of state discuss crises in Gaza and Lebanon

Updated 15 October 2024
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Jordanian minister and US secretary of state discuss crises in Gaza and Lebanon

  • Ayman Safadi tells Antony Blinken that Israeli aggression in Gaza, hostilities in Lebanon, and violations in West Bank and Jerusalem must end

LONDON: Jordan’s foreign minister and the US secretary of state on Tuesday discussed the escalating crisis in the region and the urgent need for humanitarian aid in Gaza and Lebanon.

During his telephone conversation with Antony Blinken, Ayman Safadi said that halting Israeli aggression in Gaza remains a crucial first step on the path toward deescalation.

In addition, he emphasized the important need for hostilities in Lebanon to end, calling for the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 to help maintain peace and security in the region. Resolution 1701 was adopted in August 2006 with aim of resolving the conflict that year between Israel and Hezbollah.

He also demanded an end to Israeli escalations in the occupied West Bank and violations at holy sites in Jerusalem, calling for respect for the established historical and legal status quo.

The conversation between the officials came amid an escalation of the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which has resulted in significant numbers of civilian casualties and the continuing decline in an already dire humanitarian situation there, and the expanding conflict between the Israeli army and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Officials said Safadi and Blinken emphasized the need for international collaborations in efforts to address the humanitarian needs arising from the conflicts, and discussed other issues of mutual interest.


Israel assures US it won’t strike Iranian nuclear or oil sites, US officials say

Updated 15 October 2024
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Israel assures US it won’t strike Iranian nuclear or oil sites, US officials say

  • The officials noted that Israel’s track record on fulfilling pledges in the past is mixed and has often reflected domestic Israeli politics that have upended Washington’s expectations
  • The tit-for-tat strikes and uncertainty about whether Israel might strike strategically important energy and nuclear sites in Iran have raised fears about escalation into an all-out regional war

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration believes it has won assurances from Israel that it will not hit Iranian nuclear or oil sites as it looks to strike back following Iran’s missile barrage earlier this month, two US officials said Tuesday.
The administration also believes that sending a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel and roughly 100 soldiers to operate it has eased some of Israel’s concerns about possible Iranian retaliation and general security issues.
The Pentagon on Sunday announced the THAAD deployment to help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Israel in April and October, saying it was authorized at the direction of President Joe Biden.
However, the US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic discussions, cautioned that Israel’s assurances are not ironclad and that circumstances could change.
The officials also noted that Israel’s track record on fulfilling pledges in the past is mixed and has often reflected domestic Israeli politics that have upended Washington’s expectations.
The most recent example of that was last month, when US officials were told by their Israeli counterparts that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would welcome a US- and French-led temporary ceasefire initiative in Lebanon only to see Israel launch a massive airstrike that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah two days later.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “‏we listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interests.”
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned their Israeli counterparts in a letter dated Sunday that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid being allowed into Gaza within the next 30 days or Israel could risk losing access to US weapons funding.
The Middle East has been bracing for an expected response from Israel after Iran launched roughly 180 ballistic missiles on Oct. 1, which the United States helped to fend off. The tit-for-tat strikes and uncertainty about whether Israel might strike strategically important energy and nuclear sites in Iran have raised fears about escalation into an all-out regional war.
Israel’s offensive against Iranian-backed Hamas militants in Gaza has expanded into a ground invasion of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy that has been firing into Israel since the conflict in Gaza started a year ago in solidarity with Hamas.
Biden has said he would not support a retaliatory Israeli strike on sites related to Tehran’s nuclear program and urged Israel to consider alternatives to hitting Iran’s oil sector. Such a strike could affect the global oil market and boost pump prices just ahead of the US presidential election.
Biden and Netanyahu spoke by phone last week for the first time in seven weeks, while Defense Secretary Austin has been speaking regularly with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant.
The Pentagon said in a readout of a call from Sunday that Austin reaffirmed US support for Israel’s security but urged it to ensure protections for UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, shift from military operations to a diplomatic solution and “raised concern for the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and stressed that steps must be taken soon to address it.”
The White House National Security Council declined to confirm that Netanyahu offered Biden any assurances about targets.
“Our commitment to Israel’s defense is ironclad,” the White House National Security Council said in a statement. “We will not discuss private diplomatic discussions and would refer you to the Israeli government to speak to their own potential military operations.”