Israel’s president condemns ‘pogrom’ after deadly attack by Jewish settlers on Palestinian village

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Activists try to reach a land confiscated by Israeli settlers in the al-Makhrur area near Beit Jala in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on August 15, 2024. (AFP)
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Activists try to reach a land confiscated by Israeli settlers in the al-Makhrur area near Beit Jala in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on August 15, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 16 August 2024
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Israel’s president condemns ‘pogrom’ after deadly attack by Jewish settlers on Palestinian village

  • "This is not our way and certainly not the way of Torah and Judaism," Herzog posted on X, formerly Twitter
  • He urged law enforcement officials to "act immediately against this serious phenomenon and bring the lawbreakers to justice"

JERUSALEM: Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday condemned a “pogrom” after a Jewish settler attack on a village in the occupied West Bank that the Palestinian Authority said killed one Palestinian and wounded another.
Mahmoud Abdel Qader Sadda, 23, “was martyred, and a citizen was critically injured in the chest by settlers’ bullets” in the village of Jit, west of Nablus, a Palestinian health ministry statement said.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing local sources, said “armed colonists” attacked the western part of the village, “setting several vehicles ablaze.”

The Israeli military said “dozens of Israeli civilians, some of them masked,” entered Jit and “set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails.”

Videos of the "attack" posted on social media showed homes burning in the village of Jit, east of Qalqilia in the West Bank.

One Israeli was taken for questioning, said a military statement, which did not confirm the Palestinian man’s death.

“I strongly condemn this evening’s pogrom in Samaria,” Herzog wrote on X, formerly Twitter, using the name of the biblical province corresponding to the northern West Bank.

“This is an extreme minority that harms the law-abiding settler population and the settlement as a whole and the name and position of Israel in the world during a particularly sensitive and difficult period.

"This is not our way and certainly not the way of Torah and Judaism. Law enforcement officials must act immediately against this serious phenomenon and bring the lawbreakers to justice," he said.

Pogrom, of Yiddish and Russian origin, refers to an organized massacre of a particular ethnic or religious group, according to various dictionaries.  Herzog's use of the term on Jewish settlers is significant as the Jewish people in Russia or eastern Europe were the target of pogroms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “takes seriously the riots that took place this evening,” according to a statement from his office.

“Those responsible for any criminal act will be caught and prosecuted,” the statement said.

Violence in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and separated from the Gaza Strip by Israeli territory, has surged since the Gaza war started on October 7.

Israeli settlement there — considered illegal under international law — has also hit new records.

Netanyahu, head of the conservative Likud party, has governed Israel since December 2022 with the support of far-right formations advocating more Israeli settlements in the West Bank or even outright annexation.

His right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an architect of the upsurge in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, wrote on X that the attackers in Jit had “nothing to do with the settlement and the settlers.”

“They are criminals who must be dealt with by the law enforcement authorities with the full force of the law,” he added.

Since October 7, at least 633 Palestinians have been killed in violence with settlers or Israeli troops, according to the Palestinian authorities.

At least 18 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in attacks involving Palestinians, according to official Israeli figures.

Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, some 490,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank alongside roughly three million Palestinians.
 

 

 

 

 

 


Macron urges halt to arms deliveries to Israel for use in Gaza

Updated 4 sec ago
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Macron urges halt to arms deliveries to Israel for use in Gaza

“The priority is that we return to a political solution,” Macron told broadcaster France Inter

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged a halt to arms deliveries to Israel, which has been criticized over the conduct of its retaliatory operation in Gaza.
“I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza,” Macron told broadcaster France Inter, adding that France was not sending any arms to Israel.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged a halt to arms deliveries to Israel, which has been criticized over the conduct of its retaliatory operation in Gaza. (Reuters/File)

Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva

Updated 10 min 20 sec ago
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Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva

  • Amphoras, statuettes, vases, oil lamps and figurines are among the 44 objects unearthed in Gaza going on show in the “Patrimony in Peril” exhibition at the Museum of Art and History
  • “It’s a part of Gaza’s soul. Its identity, even,” Beatrice Blandin, the exhibition’s curator, said

GENEVA: Archaeological treasures from the Gaza Strip are going on display in Geneva, with the Swiss city protecting the heritage of a territory devastated by a year of war.
Amphoras, statuettes, vases, oil lamps and figurines are among the 44 objects unearthed in Gaza going on show in the “Patrimony in Peril” exhibition at the Museum of Art and History (MAH).
“It’s a part of Gaza’s soul. Its identity, even,” Beatrice Blandin, the exhibition’s curator, told AFP. “Heritage is really the history of this strip of land, the history of the people who live there.”
The artefacts are from a collection of more than 530 objects that have been stored in crates in a secure warehouse in Geneva since 2007, unable to return to Gaza.
The exhibition, which runs from Saturday until February 9, also includes artefacts from Sudan, Syria and Libya.
It was staged to mark the 70th anniversary of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.
The exhibition looks at the responsibility of museums in saving such property from damage, looting and conflict, reminding visitors that deliberately destroying heritage is a war crime.
“The forces of obscurantism understand that cultural property is what is at stake for civilization, because they have never stopped wanting to destroy this heritage, as in Mosul,” said Geneva city councillor Alfonso Gomez — a reference to the northern Iraqi city captured by the Islamic State jihadist group in 2014.
MAH director Marc-Olivier Wahler told AFP: “Unfortunately, in the event of conflict, many aggressors attack cultural heritage because it is obviously erasing the identity of a people, erasing its history.”
Thankfully, “there are museums, rules and conventions that protect this heritage.”
Since Israel’s offensive in Gaza began following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, cultural sites in the Palestinian territory have paid a heavy price, says the United Nations’ cultural organization.
UNESCO has verified damage to 69 sites: 10 religious sites, 43 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, two depositories of movable cultural property, six monuments, one museum and seven archaeological sites.
At a time when Palestinian cultural heritage is “the victim of unprecedented destruction, the patrimonial value of the Gazan objects held in Geneva seems greater than ever,” said the MAH.
Some of the objects belonged to the Palestinian Authority. The rest belonged to the Palestinian entrepreneur Jawdat Khoudary, but he later gave ownership of them to the PA in 2018.
These artefacts, evoking daily, civil and religious life from the Bronze Age to the Ottoman era, arrived in Geneva in 2006 to be shown at the “Gaza at the Crossroads of Civilizations” exhibition, inaugurated by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
They had been meant to form the foundation of an archaeological museum to be built in Gaza.
Instead, they were stuck in Geneva for 17 years, the conditions for their safe return having never been met.
“At the time when the objects were due to leave, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip and there were geopolitical tensions between Palestine and Israel,” said Blandin.
This “coincidence of circumstances,” she said, ultimately saved the artefacts: the rest of Khoudary’s private collection, which remained in Gaza, has been “totally destroyed” since October 7 last year.
Following a new cooperation agreement signed last September between the Palestinian Authority and Geneva, the Swiss city has committed to looking after the artefacts for as long as necessary.
The MAH also served as a refuge, in 1939 when the Spanish Republicans evacuated by train the greatest treasures from the Museo del Prado in Madrid and several other major collections.
And last year, Geneva hosted an exhibition of Ukrainian works of art.
According to the Swiss Museums Association, Switzerland, along with counterparts in other countries, has also been able to help more than 200 museums in Ukraine preserve their collections after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.


Frankly Speaking: How Fareed Zakaria views change in Saudi Arabia

Updated 9 min 44 sec ago
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Frankly Speaking: How Fareed Zakaria views change in Saudi Arabia

  • CNN journalist and author no longer skeptical about Arab Gulf states after seeing the Kingdom’s transformation
  • Says they are moving region toward stability, economic integration, greater interdependence, ties with more countries

DUBAI: The changes taking place in Saudi Arabia will be viewed in the long run as nothing short of a revolution, but one that happened in an “incremental” and “organic way,” according to CNN journalist, author and political analyst Fareed Zakaria.

He made the comments during an appearance on the Arab News show “Frankly Speaking” from the Saudi capital, which he visited last week and where he participated in a talk at the Riyadh International Book Fair around his latest book, “The Age of Revolutions.”

He said he feels the changes across the Kingdom are taking place at many levels. “The ones that I am most struck by, of course, are the role of women, but I am also struck by the role of (all) Saudis. And this to me is a very interesting and somewhat unremarked upon change,” he told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen.

“There are areas where (Saudi Arabia) is moving very fast; there are areas where it is still being somewhat restrained. … I am impressed that they are trying to strike a balance, that they are trying to push some things forward and modernize in some areas.”

Elaborating on the point, Zakaria said: “The role of women really has been transformed, but there are some areas, for example, where there’s still the requirement and encouragement that Saudis dress in traditional clothes. So, Saudi Arabia is trying to balance this in a way that doesn’t become too revolutionary.”

Overall, he said referring to the change, “when you look at it in historical terms, clearly this will be seen as a revolution, but it’s a revolution that is being played out in an incremental way, in an organic way … so that the changes are not so overwhelming.”

Moving on to the wider Arab Gulf region, Zakaria confessed that he was a skeptic for many years, considering these countries “very passive.”

“If you look at the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, the Arab world was defined by its big, large states that were historically important: Egypt, Syria, Iraq. Then in the ’70s, you went through maybe a period of turmoil around Iran and the Islamic Revolution,” he said.

“But today, what is clear is that (the Arab Gulf states), starting with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, are in the driver’s seat and they are trying, they are moving, they’re trying to move the region toward stability, economic integration, greater interdependence, more ties with more countries.”

Zakaria attributed said change in part to what is been happening in Saudi Arabia. “The UAE, to be fair, may even have been one of the first to begin that process. But now that Saudi Arabia is on board, of course, is much larger, much more powerful and can have a much more positive influence,” he said.

Alluding to the spirit of the landmark Abraham Accords, brokered by the Trump administration in 2020, Zakaria noted that the Arab Gulf states are reaching out to India and China among other economic powers. “This is all for the good because the more trade, commerce, interdependence and integration takes place, the more the average person in the Arab world is going to benefit because his or her living standards will rise,” he said.

The Indian-born American journalist is the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly column for The Washington Post. A prolific author, Zakaria has a PhD in government from Harvard University where he studied under such famous scholars as Samuel P. Huntington and Stanley Hoffmann.


Israel military official says ‘preparing response’ to Iran attack

Updated 05 October 2024
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Israel military official says ‘preparing response’ to Iran attack

  • He did not elaborate on the nature or timing of the response

JERUSALEM: An Israeli official told AFP on Saturday that the military is “preparing a response” to the Iranian missile barrage that targeted Israel earlier this week.
“The IDF (Israeli military) is preparing a response to the unprecedented and unlawful Iranian attack on Israeli civilians and Israel,” the military official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
He did not elaborate on the nature or timing of the response.
Israel’s left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, quoting the military, reported that the military’s response will be “significant.”
“The IDF is preparing for a significant strike in Iran following this week’s missile attack from Tehran,” the newspaper reported.
“The military does not rule out the possibility that Iran may launch missiles at Israeli territory again after the Israeli attack,” it added.
On October 1, Iran launched around 200 missiles at Israel, its second direct attack on the country in less than six months.
Most of the missiles were intercepted by Israel’s aerial defense system, while some hit military bases but did not cause major damage or casualties.
Iran said the missiles were launched to avenge the assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah who was killed by an Israeli air strike in the Lebanese capital on September 27.
Iran’s missile attack was also in response to the death of the former political head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran on July 31.
Both Iran and Hamas blame Israel for Haniyeh’s killing. Israel has not commented on his death.


Iran FM renews call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefires on Syria visit

Updated 05 October 2024
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Iran FM renews call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefires on Syria visit

  • Syria’s Assad says Iran’s attack on Israel taught it ‘lesson’
  • Araghchi’s visit to Damascus is his first since he took office in August

DAMASCUS: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi renewed his call for ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon on Saturday as he held talks with his country’s Syrian ally.
“The most important issue today is the ceasefire, especially in Lebanon and in Gaza,” he told reporters.
“There are initiatives in this regard, there have been consultations that we hope will be successful.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad said Iran’s second-ever missile attack on Israel this week was a “lesson” for Israel.
The missile attack on Tuesday evening, just days after Israel killed the leader of Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, was “a strong response and taught the Zionist entity a lesson,” Assad was quoted as saying as Araghchi visited Damascus.
Araghchi’s visit to Damascus, his first since he took office in August, comes almost a year after Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel, triggering war in Gaza.
The conflict has also drawn in Iran’s Lebanese ally, Hezbollah and on September 23 Israel sharply intensified its campaign against the militant group.
“The purpose of my trip to Damascus is to continue consultations regarding the developments in the region,” Araghchi said.
His meetings in the Syrian capital follow a visit to Beirut Friday during which he voiced support for a truce in Lebanon acceptable to Hezbollah “simultaneously with a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Araghchi traveled to Damascus by air after Lebanon said an Israeli air strike on Friday severed the main international highway linking the two countries.
Israel said its strike was aimed at preventing the flow of weapons to Hezbollah from neighboring Syria.
Iran has been a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout the civil war that erupted in 2011 following the suppression of anti-government protests.