JERUSALEM: Israel will reopen the crossing on the Israeli-controlled border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank to humanitarian aid trucks destined for Gaza for the first time since late September, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.
“Following the understandings and a directive of the political echelon, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) the transfer of goods and aid from Jordan to the area of Judea and Samaria and to the Gaza Strip will be permitted through the Allenby Crossing,” an Israeli official said in a statement, using the Israeli Biblical term for the West Bank.
“All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security, following a thorough security inspection,” the official added.
Israel closed the crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September.
The crossing in the Jordan Valley reopened to travelers a few days later, but not to humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, devastated by more than two years of war.
Since the closure at Allenby, Jordan said it had been able to send some aid to Gaza via the Sheikh Hussein crossing, north of the West Bank.
The Allenby crossing is the only international gateway for Palestinians from the West Bank that does not require entering Israel, which has occupied the territory since 1967.
Tzav 9, an extremist Israeli right-wing activist group seeking to halt any aid arriving in Gaza so long as Israeli hostages are held in the Palestinian territory, condemned Tuesday’s announcement.
“Hamas is still on its feet and acts every day against our fighters, and the government of Israel continues to send supply trucks and treats directly to the vile murderers who murdered, beheaded, and raped on October 7,” the US-sanctioned group said in a statement.
Of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war in Gaza, all but the remains of Israeli Ran Gvili have been handed over.
Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire deal that entered into force on October 10, Hamas committed to returning all living and deceased hostages.
Israel to reopen crossing with Jordan to Gaza aid trucks Wednesday: Israeli official
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Israel to reopen crossing with Jordan to Gaza aid trucks Wednesday: Israeli official
- “All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security ,” the official added
- Israel closed the crossing after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September
Western Libya forces kill notorious migrant smuggler, security agency says
- The Security Threats Combating Agency raided the group’s hideout in response to the attack and killed its leader, Ahmed Al-Dabbashi
- Dabbashi had been under US sanctions since 2018
BENGHAZI: Western Libyan security forces said on Friday they had killed a notorious migrant smuggler in the coastal city of Sabratha after “criminal gangs” affiliated with him attacked one of their checkpoints overnight.
The Security Threats Combating Agency, a security agency under western Libya’s Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah, said they raided the group’s hideout in response to the attack and killed its leader, Ahmed Al-Dabbashi, also known as “Al-Amu.”
Dabbashi’s brother was arrested and six members of the force were wounded in the fighting, the agency said in the statement on its Facebook page.
Dabbashi had been under US sanctions since 2018. Washington described him as the “leader of one of two powerful migrant smuggling organizations” based in Sabratha and said he had “used his organization to rob and enslave migrants before allowing them to leave for Italy.”
Human trafficking is rife in Libya, which has been divided between rival armed factions since a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The proliferation of smuggling gangs and the absence of a strong central authority have made the country one of the main staging points for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe.
Dbeibah was installed through a UN-backed process in 2021, but significant parts of western Libya remain outside his control. Dbeibah’s Government of National Unity, or GNU, is not recognized by rival authorities in the east.
An armed alliance affiliated with an earlier UN-backed government in Tripoli – the Government of National Accord – had taken on Dabbashi’s forces in a three-week battle in 2017 that killed and wounded dozens and damaged residential areas and Sabratha’s Roman ruins.
