#PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT MAHMUD ABBAS

[thoughtlessarse]

The Arab League has called for a UN peacekeeping force in the Palestinian territories as well as an international peace conference at a summit in Bahrain that was dominated by the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. It also called for all Palestinian factions to come together under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) banner. In a concluding statement following a meeting in Manama, the 22-member grouping called for “international protection and peacekeeping forces of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories” until a two-state solution is implemented. It also adopted calls by host Bahrain’s King Hamad and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to “convene an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations, to resolve the Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution”. The meeting of Arab heads of state and government convened in Bahrain more than seven months into the conflict in Gaza that has shaken the wider region and threatened to spread. Having made headway towards establishing ties with Arab states in the last number of years, Israel has become increasingly isolated in recent months due to the level of death and destruction it has wrought in Gaza, and especially over its plans to invade the southern city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge.

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[swldx]

Voice of America 0429 15 Mar 2024

9775Khz 0357 15 MAR 2024 - VOICE OF AMERICA (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) in ENGLISH from MOPENG HILL. SINPO = 55445. English, Official Editorial opinion in progress focusing on the situation in the South China sea. The USA will continue to provide a physical presence to assert the passage under international law in spite of Chinese intimidation and claims of sovereignty. @0400z VoA News read by Micheal Brown. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States, called on Israel Thursday to hold new elections, saying he believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way” in the country’s bombardment of Gaza. Schumer, long an ally of the Jewish state, said Netanyahu risks making his country a “pariah” in world affairs. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the chamber, rebuked Schumer for his suggestion that Israel hold new elections. “It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of the democratically elected leader of Israel,” McConnell said. Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas named Mohammed Mustafa, a dependable advisor on economic matters, as prime minister on Thursday. Less than three weeks have passed since Mustafa’s appointment. His predecessor, Mohammed Shtayyeh, resigned, citing the need for change following the October 7 Hamas strike that sparked an Israeli-Gaza conflict. Voters headed to the polls in Russia on Friday for a three-day presidential election that is all but certain to extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule by six more years after he stifled dissent. The election takes place against the backdrop of a ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and prominent rights groups and given Putin full control of the political system. As violence continued in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, a powerful gang leader on Thursday threatened political leaders who are set to take part in a planned transitional council to govern the Caribbean nation. Under pressure from the United States, unpopular and unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced Monday that he would step down once the transitional council was in place. The White House confirmed Thursday that Henry is in Puerto Rico. An appeals court denied Trump White House official Peter Navarro 's bid to stave off his jail sentence on contempt of Congress charges Thursday. Navarro has been ordered to report to a federal prison by March 19. He argued he should stay free as he appeals his conviction for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Al-Shabab fighters in Somalia stormed a heavily guarded hotel in downtown Mogadishu on Thursday evening, witnesses and officials said. A resident told VOA that an explosion was detonated outside the SYL hotel. Moments later, the witness said, he heard gunfire from inside the hotel. The al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, and its members were fighting inside the hotel. @0405z “Daybreak Africa” anchored by male announcer (w/African accent). Backyard gutter antenna, Etón e1XM. 100kW, BeamAz 350°, bearing 84°. Received at Plymouth, MN, United States, 14087KM from transmitter at Mopeng Hill. Local time: 2257.

[hardynwa]

One killed, eight wounded in gun attack near West Bank settlement

Three Palestinian gunmen killed one person and wounded eight, among them a young pregnant woman, in a “terror attack” Thursday when they sprayed automatic weapons fire at vehicles near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli police said. The shooters were “neutralised”, police said, and an AFP photographer later saw their bodies at the scene of the attack on a highway east of Jerusalem, where five cars were riddled with bullets. “The three terrorists… got out of their vehicle and started shooting automatic weapons at vehicles that were in a traffic jam on the road towards Jerusalem,” police said in a statement about the attack near the Maale Adumim settlement. “Two terrorists were neutralised on the spot,” police said. “In the searches conducted at the scene, another terrorist was located who tried to escape and he was also neutralised.” The gunmen were identified as Mohammed Zawahrah, 26, his brother Kathim Zawahrah, 31, and Ahmed Al-Wahsh, also 31, by Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet. Among those wounded was a 23-year-old pregnant woman who was in critical condition, said the emergency response service Magen David Adom and a spokesperson for the Shaare Tzedek Hospital. Violence was already on the rise across the West Bank prior to the Gaza war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack, but has escalated since then to levels unseen in nearly two decades, with hundreds killed in recent months. ‘Distribute more weapons’Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the site of Thursday’s attack where he told journalists: “The enemies… want to hurt us. They hate us.” He argued that “we need to distribute more weapons” and that “our right to life is superior to the freedom of movement” of residents governed by the Palestinian Authority under president Mahmud Abbas. “There should be more restrictions and we should put barriers around villages and limit the freedom of movement” of people from the West Bank, Ben Gvir added. Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for a “firm security response… and colonisation” by building thousands of new housing units in settlements like Maale Adumim and across the West Bank. “Our enemies must know that any harm done to us would result in more construction, more development and even more control over the entire country,” he said on X, formerly Twitter. The attack came after two people were shot dead last Friday at a bus stop in southern Israel near the town of Kiryat Malakhi. The West Bank has seen frequent Palestinian attacks on Israelis and near-daily raids by the Israeli military that often turn deadly. Escalating violenceIsraeli troops and settlers have killed at least 400 Palestinians in the West Bank since the Gaza war broke out, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah. Israel captured the West Bank — including east Jerusalem, which it later annexed — in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. Around 475,000 Jewish settlers currently live in the occupied West Bank, in settlements considered illegal by the United Nations and most of the international community. The West Bank’s Palestinian population is about 2.9 million. The Palestinians claim the territory as the heartland of a future independent state, a goal being discussed by the international community as the Gaza war rages into a fifth month. Israel’s parliament Wednesday overwhelmingly backed a proposal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposing any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. The Gaza war erupted after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of around 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. At least 29,410 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military offensive on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. AFP Read the full article

[shahananasrin-blog]

[ad_1] SIDON, Lebanon: Two fighters and a civilian were killed Saturday in clashes at a south Lebanon Palestinian camp, official media reported, as Prime Minister Najib Mikati rebuked Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas over the spiralling violence. Renewed fighting broke out late Thursday in Ain al-Helweh refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon, just weeks after deadly violence pitted members of Abbas’s Fatah movement against Islamist militants.Ongoing clashes inside the camp on Saturday killed “one person from Fatah” and an Islamist, while “a civilian was killed by a stray bullet” outside the camp, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said, reporting dozens of others wounded.“What is taking place does not serve the Palestinian cause at all and is a serious offence to the Lebanese state” and the city of Sidon, Mikati told Abbas in a phone call on Saturday, his office said in a statement. Mikati emphasised “the priority of ending military operations and cooperating with Lebanese security forces to address tensions”, according to the statement on X, formerly Twitter.Heavy clashes broke out on Saturday morning after calm had largely prevailed overnight, an AFP correspondent in Sidon said, reporting the sound of automatic and heavy weapons. The fighting was focused on a school compound belonging to the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, a source in the camp’s Palestinian leadership told AFP on condition of anonymity. UNRWA had previously warned that militants were occupying its schools in the camp.Ain al-Helweh is home to more than 54,000 registered refugees and thousands of Palestinians who joined them in recent years from Syria, fleeing war in the neighbouring country. The camp, Lebanon’s largest, was created for Palestinians who were driven out or fled during the 1948 war that coincided with Israel’s creation.The Lebanese army, which by long-standing convention does not enter the camps and leaves Palestinian factions to handle security there, called on “all relevant parties in the camp to stop the fighting”. It said it was taking the “necessary measures and making the required contacts to stop the clashes, which endanger the lives of innocent” people.Dozens of families fled as the fighting intensified, carrying bags packed with basic necessities such as bread, water and medicine, the AFP correspondent said. Camp resident Mohammed Badran, 32, said he would “sleep on the streets” with his wife and two terrified children rather than return before the fighting ended. “We were going through hell,” he said from a Sidon mosque where his and other families have taken refuge.An AFP correspondent saw aid workers setting up tents outside the municipal stadium in Sidon to shelter camp dwellers displaced by the fighting. “The municipality is coordinating with the Red Cross to set up 16 tents as a first step,” Mustafa Hijazi, an official in charge of disaster management at Sidon municipality, told AFP. “We expect to erect more (tents), to accommodate about 250 people,” he added.A public hospital directly adjacent to the camp transferred all its patients to other facilities because of the danger, its director Ahmad al-Samadi told AFP.Five days of clashes that began in late July left 13 people dead and dozens wounded, in the worst outbreak of violence in the camp in years. That fighting erupted after the death of an Islamist militant, followed by an ambush that killed five Fatah members including a military leader. The United Nations’ resident coordinator in Lebanon, Imran Riza, on Friday urged “armed groups to stop the fighting in the camp” and to “immediately” vacate schools belonging to the UNRWA. “The use of armed groups of schools amounts to gross violations” of international law, Riza said in a statement. Lebanon hosts an estimated 250,000 Palestinian refugees, according to the UN agency.Most live in Lebanon’s 12 official camps, and face a variety of legal restrictions including on employment. [ad_2]

[intcongarchsection]

Word on the ground suggests talks failed to produce any new traction. A few bland statements issued but not much more than that.

Some groups like PFLP did not turn up anyway. Some demonstrations at the same time around Gaza against Hamas as blamed for fuel shortages.

BAU.......

[andrewtheprophet]

Abbas vows to rebuild outside the Temple Walls after deadly Israeli raid: Revelation 11

Occupied West Bank: Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh (centre left) arrive to lay a wreath of flowers by the graves of those killed in recent Israeli military raids on the Jenin camp for refugees, on Wednesday.—AFP Abbas vows to rebuild Jenin camp after deadly Israeli raid AFP Published July 13, 2023  Updated about 15 hours ago JENIN: Palestinian president…

[oceansoulmatesblog]

Xi calls for a Palestinian state to become 'full member' of UN

AFP , Wednesday 14 Jun 2023 Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday his call for a state of Palestine to become a “full member” of the United Nations, state media reported. China s President Xi Jinping attends a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Wednesday, June 14, 2023. AP Xi expressed…

[stuartbramhall]

Xi hails establishment of ‘China-Palestine strategic’ ties

Source: Dawn The Muslim Times Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday that his country was establishing “strategic” relations with Palestinians ahead of talks with leader Mahmud Abbas in Beijing. Abbas will be in the Chinese capital until Friday, Beijing has said, on his fifth official visit to the world’s second-largest economy. “Facing a century of global changes and new developments to…

[creatiview]

JENIN, Palestine: An Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp Thursday killed nine Palestinians including an elderly woman, Palestinian officials said, also accusing the forces of using tear gas inside a hospital children’s ward. The death toll rose to “nine martyrs including an elderly woman,” the health ministry said, with multiple wounded. In a separate statement, Palestinian health minister Mai al-Kaila charged that “occupation forces stormed Jenin Government Hospital and intentionally fired tear gas canisters at the paediatric department in the hospital”. She described the situation in the refugee camp as “critical” and said Israeli forces were preventing ambulances from reaching the wounded. Israel’s army declined to comment when asked by AFP about the health minister’s tear gas allegation. The military has said only that its “forces are operating in Jenin”. Thursday’s fatalities bring the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank so far this year to 29, most of whom were shot by Israeli forces. Jenin deputy governor Kamal Abu al-Rub told AFP that residents were living in a “real state of war”. “The Israeli army is destroying everything and shooting at everything that moves,” he told AFP. The mounting toll follows the deadliest year in the Palestinian territory since United Nations records began in 2005. At least 26 Israelis and 200 Palestinians were killed across Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2022, the majority in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally from official sources. Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinian presidency said Thursday’s raid on Jenin was happening “under international silence”. “This is what encourages the occupation government to commit massacres against our people in full view of the world,” said Nabil Abu Rudeinah, spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. The Palestinian health minister called for an urgent meeting with the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross over the events in Jenin. The latest violence comes a day after Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians in separate incidents.

[arun-pratap-singh]

Israel revokes entry permits of senior Palestinian officials | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Israel revokes entry permits of senior Palestinian officials | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Three Fatah officials have their Israeli entry permits revoked after visiting a Palestinian citizen of Israel released from prison. Israel says it has revoked entry permits for three senior officials from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party after they visited a Palestinian citizen of Israel recently released from prison. Mahmud al-Alul, Azzam al-Ahmad and Rawhi Fattouh had visited…

[thunderrabby-blog]

Israel revokes entry permits of senior Palestinian officials | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Israel revokes entry permits of senior Palestinian officials | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Three Fatah officials have their Israeli entry permits revoked after visiting a Palestinian citizen of Israel released from prison. Israel says it has revoked entry permits for three senior officials from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party after they visited a Palestinian citizen of Israel recently released from prison. Mahmud al-Alul, Azzam al-Ahmad and Rawhi Fattouh had visited…

[rivaltimes]

Abbas says that "he does not support armed resistance" but qualifies that "it is something that could change"

Abbas says that “he does not support armed resistance” but qualifies that “it is something that could change”

Archive – Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas – Wolfgang Kumm/dpa – File MADRID, Dec. 9 (EUROPA PRESS) – The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas, has affirmed that he “does not support armed resistance”, although he has outlined that “it is something that could change”, given the upsurge in violence in recent months, which has left until the So far, more than 20…

[hardynwa]

One killed, eight wounded in gun attack near West Bank settlement

Three Palestinian gunmen killed one person and wounded eight, among them a young pregnant woman, in a “terror attack” Thursday when they sprayed automatic weapons fire at vehicles near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli police said. The shooters were “neutralised”, police said, and an AFP photographer later saw their bodies at the scene of the attack on a highway east of Jerusalem, where five cars were riddled with bullets. “The three terrorists… got out of their vehicle and started shooting automatic weapons at vehicles that were in a traffic jam on the road towards Jerusalem,” police said in a statement about the attack near the Maale Adumim settlement. “Two terrorists were neutralised on the spot,” police said. “In the searches conducted at the scene, another terrorist was located who tried to escape and he was also neutralised.” The gunmen were identified as Mohammed Zawahrah, 26, his brother Kathim Zawahrah, 31, and Ahmed Al-Wahsh, also 31, by Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet. Among those wounded was a 23-year-old pregnant woman who was in critical condition, said the emergency response service Magen David Adom and a spokesperson for the Shaare Tzedek Hospital. Violence was already on the rise across the West Bank prior to the Gaza war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack, but has escalated since then to levels unseen in nearly two decades, with hundreds killed in recent months. ‘Distribute more weapons’Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the site of Thursday’s attack where he told journalists: “The enemies… want to hurt us. They hate us.” He argued that “we need to distribute more weapons” and that “our right to life is superior to the freedom of movement” of residents governed by the Palestinian Authority under president Mahmud Abbas. “There should be more restrictions and we should put barriers around villages and limit the freedom of movement” of people from the West Bank, Ben Gvir added. Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for a “firm security response… and colonisation” by building thousands of new housing units in settlements like Maale Adumim and across the West Bank. “Our enemies must know that any harm done to us would result in more construction, more development and even more control over the entire country,” he said on X, formerly Twitter. The attack came after two people were shot dead last Friday at a bus stop in southern Israel near the town of Kiryat Malakhi. The West Bank has seen frequent Palestinian attacks on Israelis and near-daily raids by the Israeli military that often turn deadly. Escalating violenceIsraeli troops and settlers have killed at least 400 Palestinians in the West Bank since the Gaza war broke out, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah. Israel captured the West Bank — including east Jerusalem, which it later annexed — in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. Around 475,000 Jewish settlers currently live in the occupied West Bank, in settlements considered illegal by the United Nations and most of the international community. The West Bank’s Palestinian population is about 2.9 million. The Palestinians claim the territory as the heartland of a future independent state, a goal being discussed by the international community as the Gaza war rages into a fifth month. Israel’s parliament Wednesday overwhelmingly backed a proposal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposing any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. The Gaza war erupted after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of around 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. At least 29,410 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military offensive on Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. AFP Read the full article

[news-21]

After speaking with Biden, Netanyahu suggests Israel's assault in Gaza will persist

After speaking with Biden, Netanyahu suggests Israel’s assault in Gaza will persist

A member of the Palestinian civil defence walks amidst the rubble of a building in Gaza city which housed the Intaj Bank linked to the Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip, on May 15, 2021. Mahmud Hams | AFP | Getty Images President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday as the violence in Israel and the…

[julie1971]

Russia backs Palestinian proposal for Mideast peace conference

Russia backs Palestinian proposal for Mideast peace conference

Speaking to UN Security Council, Foreign Minister Lavrov suggests ministerial-level multinational summit in the spring or summer Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, welcomes Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas in Moscow, on January 20, 2012. (AP Photo/ Mikhail Metzel) UNITED NATIONS, United States — Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday backed a Palestinian…

[oceansoulmatesblog]

Xi hails establishment of 'China-Palestine strategic' ties

AFP , Wednesday 14 Jun 2023 Chinese President Xi Jinping said Wednesday that his country was establishing “strategic” relations with Palestinians ahead of talks with leader Mahmud Abbas in Beijing. China s President Xi Jinping (C) and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas attend a welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 14, 2023. AFP Abbas will be in the Chinese…