UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday adopted a Palestinian-drafted resolution that demands Israel end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months.
The resolution received 124 votes in favor, while 43 countries abstained and Israel, the United States and 12 others voted no.
The action isolates Israel days before world leaders travel to New York for their annual UN gathering. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to address the 193-member General Assembly on Sept. 26, the same day as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The resolution welcomes a July advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements is illegal and should be withdrawn.
The advisory opinion — by the highest United Nations court, also known as the World Court — said this should be done “as rapidly as possible,” although the General Assembly resolution imposes a 12-month deadline.
The General Assembly resolution also calls on states to “take steps toward ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel ... where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The resolution is the first to be formally put forward by the Palestinian Authority since it gained additional rights and privileges this month including a seat among UN members in the assembly hall and the right to propose draft resolutions.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged countries to vote no on Wednesday. Washington — an arms supplier to and ally of Israel — has long opposed unilateral measures that undermine the prospect of a two-state solution.
The ICJ advisory opinion is not binding but carries weight under international law and may weaken support for Israel. A General Assembly resolution also is not binding, but carries political weight. There is no veto power in the assembly.
“Each country has a vote, and the world is watching us,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the General Assembly on Tuesday. “Please stand on the right side of history. With international law. With freedom. With peace.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon criticized the General Assembly on Tuesday for failing to condemn the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian Hamas militants that sparked Israel’s assault on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
He rejected the Palestinian text, saying: “Let’s call this for what it is: this resolution is diplomatic terrorism, using the tools of diplomacy not to build bridges but to destroy them.”
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem — areas of historic Palestine which the Palestinians want for a state — in the 1967 Middle East war and has since built settlements in the West Bank and steadily expanded them.
The war in the Gaza Strip began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel’s military has leveled swaths of the Palestinian enclave, driving nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing more than 41,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The General Assembly on Oct. 27 last year called for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza with 120 votes in favor. Then in December, 153 countries voted to demand — instead of calling for — an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in December.
The Palestinian Authority represents the Palestinian people at the UN, where it is a non-member observer state and the delegation is known as the State of Palestine.
UN demands Israel end ‘unlawful’ presence in Palestinian territories within 12 months
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UN demands Israel end ‘unlawful’ presence in Palestinian territories within 12 months
- The resolution received 124 votes in favor, while 43 countries abstained and Israel, the United States and 12 others voted no
Italy summons Israeli ambassador after UN peacekeepers wounded in Lebanon: govt source
- The UNIFIL force said that Israeli tank fire on its headquarters wounded two members
ROME: Italy’s defense minister summoned the Israeli ambassador Thursday, a government source told AFP, after the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said it had been hit by Israeli tank fire.
The UNIFIL force, which has some 10,000 peacekeepers in south Lebanon, said that Israeli tank fire on its headquarters wounded two members, as Israeli troops battle Hezbollah militants on the border.
UN inquiry accuses Israel of crime of ‘extermination’ in destruction of Gaza health system
- A statement released ahead of a full report accused Israel of “relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities” in the war
- “Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” said Pillay
GENEVA: A United Nations inquiry said on Thursday it found that Israel carried out a concerted policy of destroying Gaza’s health care system in the Gaza war, actions amounting to both war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.
A statement by ex-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay released ahead of a full report accused Israel of “relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities” in the war, triggered by Hamas militants’ deadly cross-border attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” said Pillay, whose report will be presented to the UN General Assembly on Oct. 30.
Israel says that Gaza’s militants operate from the cover of built-up populated areas including private homes, schools and
hospitals
and that it will strike them wherever they emerge, while also trying to avoid harming civilians. Hamas denies hiding militants, weapons and command posts among civilians.
The UN inquiry’s statement also accused Israeli forces of deliberately killing and torturing medical personnel, targeting medical vehicles and restricting permits for patients to leave the besieged Gaza Strip.
As an example, it cited the death of a Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, in February along with family members and two medics who came to rescue her from under Israeli fire.
The World Health Organization says over 10,000 patients requiring urgent medical evacuation have been prevented from leaving Gaza since the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was shut in May. The Palestinian health ministry says nearly 1,000 medics have been killed in Gaza in the past year in what the WHO called “an irreplaceable loss and a massive blow to the health system.”
The statement said the treatment of both Palestinian detainees in Israel and hostages seized by Hamas fighters in the Oct. 7 attack had been investigated and it accused both sides of involvement in torture and sexual violence.
The Commission of Inquiry has a broad mandate to collect evidence and identify suspected perpetrators of international crimes committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. It bases its findings on a range of sources including interviews with victims and witnesses, submissions and satellite imagery.
The COI has previously alleged that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, and that Israel’s actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses. The term is reserved for the most serious international crimes knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians.
Israel has not cooperated with the inquiry, which it says has an anti-Israel bias. The COI has accused Israel of obstructing its work and preventing investigators from accessing both Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Sometimes, the evidence gathered by such UN-mandated bodies has formed the basis for war crimes prosecutions and could be drawn on by the International Criminal Court.
Man wounded in Israel stabbing attack dies: hospital
- “Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the medical team, the injured person was pronounced dead,” said a statement
- Palestinian militant group Hamas praised the Hadera attack, calling it a “heroic stabbing operation“
JERUSALEM: A man wounded in a stabbing rampage in the Israeli town of Hadera has died of his wounds, the hospital where he was being treated said on Thursday.
Rafael Mordechai Fishof was one of the six people wounded in what police called a “terrorist attack” on Wednesday in four locations of Hadera, before the assailant was “neutralized.”
“Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the medical team, the injured person was pronounced dead,” said a statement from the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera, where Fishof had been admitted.
“Yesterday, at the hospital, we prayed for his recovery and now our hearts are broken by this difficult news,” Hadera mayor Nir Ben Haim said in a statement, referring to Fishof, 35, a father of six.
Palestinian militant group Hamas, with which Israeli forces are locked in a fierce war in Gaza, praised the Hadera attack, calling it a “heroic stabbing operation.”
Hamas also called for “more painful strikes against the occupation (Israel).”
Israeli authorities have not provided information about the suspect but Israeli media identified him as Ahmad Jabareen, 36, an Israeli citizen from the Arab town of Umm Al-Fahm.
The Hadera attack came more than a week after seven people were killed in a shooting and stabbing claimed by Hamas in the Israeli commercial hub Tel Aviv.
Palestinian militants have carried out several attacks on Israelis since October 7 last year, when Hamas attacked southern Israel, sparking war in Gaza.
Iraq repatriates 706 people from Syria camp
- Al-Hol houses relatives of suspected Daesh group militants alongside refugees
- The security source told AFP that “706 people, or 181 families, returned to Iraq from Al-Hol and were transferred to the Al-Jadaa“
BAGHDAD: Iraq repatriated 706 people from Syria’s Al-Hol camp, home to tens of thousands of people including family members of suspected militants, a security source said Thursday.
More than 43,000 Syrians, Iraqis and other foreigners from at least 45 countries are held in the squalid and overcrowded camp in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria.
Al-Hol houses relatives of suspected Daesh group militants alongside refugees.
The security source, who requested anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to the media, told AFP that “706 people, or 181 families, returned to Iraq from Al-Hol and were transferred to the Al-Jadaa,” a camp near the northern city of Mosul.
It is the fourth group of Iraqis brought back from Al-Hol in a year, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
Repatriation of family members of suspected Daesh members has stirred controversy in Iraq, where the militant group seized large swathes of land before being defeated in late 2017.
To mitigate tensions, upon arrival in Iraq, authorities usually keep returnees from Al-Hol for weeks or even months at what officials describe as a “psychological rehabilitation” facility in Al-Jadaa camp, where they also undergo security checks before returning home.
Egypt, Somalia leaders visit Eritrea amid regional tensions
- Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia meet in Asmara
- Cairo has also long been at odds with Addis Ababa, particularly over the vast Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile
NAIROBI: The leaders of Egypt, Eritrea and Somalia were due to hold a three-way summit in Asmara on Thursday against a backdrop of heightened tensions in the Horn of Africa region.
Concerns about security and stability in the volatile area have mounted since Ethiopia in January signed a controversial deal with the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland, giving it long-sought access to the sea.
The maritime agreement infuriated Mogadishu and highlighted regional rivalries as relations soured between Ethiopia and Somalia.
The summit between Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia will focus on “bolstering the ties between the three countries as well as matters of regional security and stability,” Eritrea’s information ministry said on X.
Mohamud, who has already visited Eritrea several times, held separate talks with Isaias shortly after his arrival late Wednesday, the ministry said.
They spoke of the need to bolster cooperation “in the heavy tasks of the maintenance of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence, and unity of Somalia; which remains a prerequisite for its development against the backdrop of enormous challenges in the past two decades,” it added.
El-Sisi — whose government is siding with Somalia in its standoff with Ethiopia — flew in on Thursday and will also meet Isaias before the tripartite summit, the ministry said.
The agreement between Addis Ababa and Somaliland would see Ethiopia, one of the biggest landlocked countries in the world, lease a stretch of coastline from Somaliland for a naval base and port.
But Mogadishu — which like the rest of the international community refuses to recognize Somaliland’s 1991 declaration of independence — has described it as an assault on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Somalia reacted by growing closer to Ethiopian rival Egypt, with the two countries signing a major military deal in August and Cairo pledging troops for a new African Union mission against the Al-Shabab jihadist group.
Cairo has also long been at odds with Addis Ababa, particularly over the vast Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile which it says threatens its water supply.
El-Sisi’s office said his visit would focus on building relations with Eritrea and address “efforts to establish stability and security in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea in a manner that supports development and serves the interests of the peoples of the region.”
Relations between Addis Ababa and Asmara have also been deteriorating recently, even though troops from Asmara backed Ethiopian government forces in the brutal 2020-2022 war against Tigrayan rebels.
Last month Ethiopian Airlines said it was suspending flights to Asmara because of “difficult” operating conditions.
Dubbed the “North Korea” of Africa, Eritrea has been ruled with an iron fist by Isaias since it formally declared independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after three decades of war.
