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Tag: West Bank

  • Ten Palestinians killed during Israeli raid targeting militants in West Bank | CNN

    Ten Palestinians killed during Israeli raid targeting militants in West Bank | CNN

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    Jerusalem and Gaza
    CNN
     — 

    At least 10 Palestinians were killed Wednesday during a major Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank that also left more than 100 injured, Palestinian officials said.

    Israeli authorities said Wednesday’s operation targeted three suspects “planning attacks in the immediate future.” The three were “neutralized,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel Security Agency said in a joint statement.

    In the unusual daytime raid, Israeli forces entered Nablus in the West Bank.

    The Islamic Jihad militant group said two of its commanders were killed in ensuing clashes with Israeli troops.

    The Lion’s Den militant group also confirmed its members were involved in the fighting, but did not say if any of their members were killed.

    All three of the suspected Palestinian militants targeted by the IDF were killed, a list of the dead released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health shows.

    Six of the dead were men in their 20s, the ministry said. One was 16, one was 33, one was 61 and was was 72. All were men, the ministry list of dead shows.

    An IDF statement said earlier that two of those killed were from the Lion’s Den militant group and that one was from Islamic Jihad.

    The names of at least two suspects released by the IDF – Hussam Esleem and Waleed Dakheel – appeared to match names of the dead released by the Palestinian health ministry. The IDF said one was shot while fleeing and the other two were killed in an exchange of fire with the military.

    Israeli authorities said that suspects threw rocks, Molotov cocktails and “explosive devices” at Israeli forces.

    The raid brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces to 61 this year, the Palestinian health ministry said. That number includes people shot as they attacked Israelis, militants being targeted in raids, people clashing with Israeli forces during raids, and bystanders, CNN records show.

    Eleven Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks this year: seven in a shooting near a synagogue, three in a car ramming attack, and a border police officer who was stabbed by a teenager and then shot by friendly fire from a civilian security guard.

    Relatives mourn the death of a Palestinian killed in an Israeli raid, outside a hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus on February 22, 2023.

    IDF raids into the West Bank usually occur overnight; the last time the military conducted a daylight operation, they said it was because of an immediate threat.

    The Palestinian health ministry said five of the dead were men in their 20s. One was in his 30s, along with a man who was 61 and one who was 72.

    In addition, the ministry said 104 Palestinians were injured “with live ammunition … six of them in critical condition.”

    Islamic Jihad’s armed faction in Gaza, the Al Qassam Brigade, warned they are “watching the enemy’s escalating crimes against our people in the occupied West Bank, and its patience is running out.”

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  • Palestinian man killed and 13 injured in Israeli raid in West Bank, say Palestinian officials | CNN

    Palestinian man killed and 13 injured in Israeli raid in West Bank, say Palestinian officials | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Palestinian man was killed and 13 were injured in an Israeli raid in Nablus early Monday, Palestinian health officials said, in what Israeli authorities said was an operation to arrest suspects in the fatal shooting of an Israeli soldier last year.

    The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Amir Ihab Bustami, 21, “was shot by the Israeli occupation soldiers and killed at dawn today in Nablus.”

    Six people were wounded by live bullets during the raid in Nablus and seven others were injured “as a result of the army’s pursuit of them,” the Palestinian Red Crescent said. The agency said one person was hospitalized, and that they had also handled 75 cases of tear gas inhalation.

    The Israeli military said the overnight raid was in response to the killing of Ido Baruch in an attack near the settlement of Shavei Shomron in the occupied West Bank on October 11, 2022.

    “[Israeli forces] apprehended the assailants Obkamel Guri and Asama Tuille, from Nablus, who carried out the shooting attack during which Staff Sergeant Ido Baruch was killed,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Monday. “The forces also apprehended three additional suspects who were with the assailants.”

    The Israeli forces exchanged fire with the suspects and confiscated two rifles at an apartment in Nablus, the IDF said, adding that two of the suspects were injured during the raid.

    Lion’s Den, a Palestinian militant group that emerged in Nablus last year, claimed responsibility for the killing of Baruch. The group put out a statement Monday saying it had lured Israeli soldiers into an ambush in Nablus and killed them, but there was no evidence to support that claim. The IDF said no Israeli injuries were reported in the raid.

    The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that Israeli forces “surrounded one of the residential buildings” in Nablus and heavy gunfire and an explosion were heard.

    Separately, the Israeli military launched airstrikes in Gaza, targeting “an underground complex” belonging to Hamas for manufacturing rockets, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement early Monday. The airstrikes came after a rocket was launched from Gaza into Israel on Saturday, which the IDF said was intercepted.

    Hamas confirmed in a statement that one of its sites was hit in West Gaza on Monday. Israeli warplanes “launched about 10 air raids targeting a site of the resistance,” al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in a statement early Monday, adding that there were no casualties.

    Following the strikes, four rockets were launched from Gaza into Israel, according to a later statement by the IDF that said it struck Hamas military posts in response.

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  • Israeli forces raid Jenin, killing 14-year-old boy, Palestinian officials say | CNN

    Israeli forces raid Jenin, killing 14-year-old boy, Palestinian officials say | CNN

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    Jerusalem
    CNN
     — 

    Israeli forces raided the West Bank city of Jenin on Sunday, killing a 14-year-old boy, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. Qusai Radwan Waked was shot in the abdomen, the ministry said.

    The target of the raid was Jibril Zubeidi, who was detained, Israeli and Palestinian authorities said.

    In a joint statement, the Israel Defense Forces, Border Police and Israel Security Agency said that during the raid, “armed individuals fired at the forces who responded back with live fire… Furthermore, suspects hurled explosive devices and rocks at the forces.

    “We are aware of the reports regarding a number of armed individuals who got injured during the exchange of fire,” the Israeli statement said.

    A video from Jenin on Sunday showed what appeared to be at least seven Israeli military vehicles entering the city, and another showed smoke rising from behind a multi-story building. Locals said the Israeli forces had used a smoke bomb during the raid.

    Zubeidi was suspected of “terrorist activity against security forces and planning attacks,” as well as involvement in the brief seizure of the body of an Israeli Druze man who was killed in a car accident in the West Bank in November, the Israelis said.

    The body of the man, Tiran Ferro, was taken from a hospital in Jenin by gunmen demanding the return of the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israelis. The gunmen handed the body over to Palestinian Authority security officials the following day. The IDF said there had been no negotiations and no exchange for Ferro’s remains.

    Zubeidi had previously served 11 years in an Israeli prison, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said. One of his brothers, Dawoud, was killed by Israeli forces last year, while another, Zakariya, is a Fatah official also imprisoned in Israel.

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  • Traumatized and afraid, Jenin residents are still reeling from Israeli raid | CNN

    Traumatized and afraid, Jenin residents are still reeling from Israeli raid | CNN

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    Jenin, West Bank
    CNN
     — 

    Mohammed Abu al-Hayja was sleeping alongside his wife and two young daughters last month when loud gunfire woke them up. Minutes later, Israeli soldiers rammed down his door and burst through his apartment.

    “They spread through the house in seconds,” 29-year-old al-Hayja told CNN. “Two soldiers came up to me, told me to get up, one told me, ‘Leave your daughter with her mother,’ and then he took me and cuffed my hands behind my back.”

    Al-Hayja’s traumatic run-in with Israeli security forces happened as they carried out what they described as a counterterrorism operation in the center of the Jenin refugee camp on January 26. The building they targeted is just a few meters from his home.

    “The security forces operated to apprehend a terror squad belonging to the Islamic Jihad terror organization,” the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the Israeli Security Agency and the Israel Border Police said in a joint statement, hours after the raid.

    Ten Palestinians were killed in Jenin, including an elderly woman, according to Palestinian officials. Another Palestinian was killed in what Israel Police called a “violent disturbance” near Jerusalem hours later, making it the deadliest day for Palestinians in the West Bank in over a year, according to CNN records. As violence spiraled in the region, at least seven people were killed and three injured in a shooting near a synagogue in Jerusalem a day later according to Israeli police.

    In Jenin, Al-Hayja recalls the events of January 26 clearly, explaining that after being handcuffed an Israeli soldier took him to the bathroom and made him kneel down, before wrapping a towel around his head.

    Restrained, blindfolded and stuck in his bathroom, al-Hayja then started hearing gunfire from inside his apartment. “I could hear it, and if I concentrated I could hear one of the soldiers talking to my wife,” he says.

    Al-Hayja says he was able to convince the soldiers to let him go to his wife. Still blindfolded, he crawled to his living room, as bullets flew above him.

    Israeli soldiers had removed one of his couches and set up a firing position by the window to provide cover for their units engaging Palestinian gunmen nearby. Using apartments like al-Hayja’s to provide cover fire is “standard operating procedure,” a spokesman for the Israeli military told CNN.

    Mohammed Abu al-Hayja's house, seen from the outside.

    Representatives of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) visited Jenin in the days after the incident and spoke to al-Hayja and his family. “Their children were noticeably traumatized,” Adam Bouloukos, director of UNRWA Affairs in the West Bank told CNN. “This kind of invasion violates not only international law but common decency.”

    As Israeli soldiers fired, the Palestinian gunmen fired back, holes from their bullets dotting the family home’s doors and walls. Al-Hayja showed CNN a bag of spent bullet casings he says the Israeli soldiers left behind. “They fired a crazy number of bullets,” he added.

    While they did, al-Hayja and his wife lay on the floor clutching their young daughters for more than three hours. Their oldest daughter is 2-and-a-half, the youngest 18-months-old. “Honestly, I thought I had maybe 1% chance of making it out alive,” he said.

    Moments later an explosion rocked the apartment. He later found out that Israeli soldiers had mounted a second firing position in his bedroom.

    They sawed off the window bars and fired a rocket at the building the gunmen were in, with scorch marks smudging al-Hayja’s ceiling.

    “I said to myself, we are going to die,” he said.

    From atop al-Hayja’s building, the sprawling Jenin refugee camp spreads toward the horizon and up the hills. What were once temporary tents, is now a more permanent-looking slum of sandstone houses, cobbled on top of each other.

    Down below, lies the building targeted by Israeli soldiers. The structure was so damaged after the raid that local officials decided it was safer to bulldoze it down. On the rubble, people have placed banners with the faces of some of those killed – “martyrs,” they read – and a lone Palestinian flag.

    Abdel-Rahman Macharqa, a paramedic in Jenin, told CNN that he unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate one of the victims on January 26.

    While this operation was one of the deadliest in years, for residents here, such Israeli incursions occur all too often. Posters remembering other people killed in confrontations with Israeli security forces over the years line walls across the neighborhood.

    The IDF says these raids are targeted, aimed at terrorists, and that they open fire when those they are searching for fire at them.

    But people in Jenin see it differently. “The Israelis raid the camp and they fire at anything that moves,” paramedic Abdel-Rahman Macharqa told CNN.

    The 31-year-old has seen multiple gun battles in Jenin and says the situation is becoming increasingly riskier, even for those who save lives, like him.

    “They [Israeli soldiers] have fired at me five times,” Macharqa said. “We don’t feel safe, even in uniform.”

    Bullet holes from the incident mark the walls in the neighborhood.

    An elderly lady walks near the scene of the raid.

    “When we say goodbye to our wives and children to come to work, we know we could become martyrs,” he added.

    Macharqa witnessed part of the raid in Jenin as it unfolded on January 26. The paramedic tried to help one of the three civilians whom Israeli officials say were killed there, along with seven gunmen.

    “They opened fired on him and he was hit three times,” he recalled. Macharqa said he pulled the man away and attempted to resuscitate him, but he died.

    “We deserve to live,” Macharqa said. He feels frustrated, not just by Israeli actions, but also what he sees as the passive attitude and double standards of the international community.

    “Israelis claim he is a terrorist, but Ukrainians, when they defend themselves from the Russian invasion is that terrorism?,” he asked.

    On the day of the raid, Ziad Miri’ee peaked out of his door after he heard gunfire. He saw an Israeli soldier firing through his car to hit a young man from his neighborhood.

    “Our neighbors over there tried to pull him out (of the street),” he said. “The kid died.”

    Miri’ee, 63, says he was one of the Jenin camp’s oldest residents, but he also believes the situation has been getting worse.

    “In 2002, when they raided the camp and bulldozed the houses it was much easier than the three-and-a-half hours of last week’s raid,” he said. At the time, during the second intifada, Israeli forces occupied the camp, destroying around 400 homes.

    “2002 was a child play compared to the incident here last week. We couldn’t step a meter outside the house because the bullets were coming in,” he said.

    Ziad Miri'ee was one of the Jenin camp's first residents.

    A child plays by a window, next to the building that was destroyed.

    Miri’ee believes the situation is bound to get even worse, as frustration with the occupation grows, the lack of future on the horizon is driving more and more young people to join the ranks of militant organizations such as the Islamic Jihad.

    “Yes, there’s more [fighters] from this generation,” he says. “This generation was born into the war.”

    Upstairs from Miri’ee, al-Hayja is still shaken by the traumatic experience. Inside his home there’s no room for bravado, just concern over the safety of his daughters.

    “I don’t interfere or get involved in these things, I just go from my work to my house and it all landed on my head,” he said. “You are in your city and you are not safe, you are in your house and you are not safe.”

    “You are not safe from this occupier who occupies your land” he added. “You are not safe at all.”

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  • Exclusive: Netanyahu says don’t get ‘hung up’ on peace with Palestinians first | CNN

    Exclusive: Netanyahu says don’t get ‘hung up’ on peace with Palestinians first | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said people can get “hung up” on peace negotiations with the Palestinians, saying he has opted for a different approach in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday.

    “When effectively the Arab-Israeli conflict (comes) to an end, I think we’ll circle back to the Palestinians and get a workable peace with the Palestinians,” he said.

    Asked by Tapper about the Biden administration’s concerns that settlements in the occupied West Bank could exacerbate tensions, Netanyahu pointed to the success of the Trump-era Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries.

    “I went around them (Palestinians), I went directly to the Arab states and forged with a new concept of peace… I forged four historic peace agreements, the Abraham Accords, which is twice the number of peace agreements that all my predecessors in 70 years got combined.”

    His comments come at a tense moment for Israel. Palestinians and Israelis have suffered terrible bloodshed in the past week, and fears are growing that the situation will spiral out of control. Last Thursday was the deadliest day for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in nearly two years, followed by a shooting near a Jerusalem synagogue Friday night – which Israel has deemed one of its worst terror attacks in recent years.

    The Biden administration has advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but there has been very little movement and seemingly few active efforts toward that goal by Netanyahu or Palestinian leaders.

    Analysts say the Abraham Accords have also done little to moderate Israel’s position on the Palestinians. When asked what concession Israel would grant Palestinian territories, Netanyahu responded: “Well, I’m certainly willing to have them have all the powers that they need to govern themselves. But none of the powers that could threaten (us) and this means that Israel should have the overriding security responsibility.”

    There are hopes that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Israel and the West Bank this week would help cool rising tensions.

    But both administrations appear to be on opposite sides of the coin when it comes to Israeli settlements. Netanyahu vowed this week that Israel would “strengthen” settlements in response to shooting attacks in Jerusalem, a position Blinken cautioned against on Tuesday.

    When asked about US concerns that expanding Israeli settlements on Palestinian land could hamper peace prospects, Netanyahu said: “Well, I totally disagree.”

    Biden and Netanyahu have a complicated relationship, especially over Iran. Netanyahu clashed with former US President Barack Obama over negotiations with the Palestinians, then again more openly over the Iran nuclear deal – which Biden would like to re-enter.

    Netanyahu explained his position on Iran to Tapper, saying, “If you have rogue regimes that are (intending to get) nuclear weapons, you can sign 100 agreements with them, it doesn’t help.”

    “I think the only way that you can stop or abstain from getting nuclear weapons is a combination of crippling economic sanctions, but the most important thing, is a credible military threat,” he said.

    Iran has said its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes and that it formally halted its weapons program, but US officials warned Iran’s uranium enrichment activities have gone far beyond the parameters of the failed 2015 nuclear deal since former US President Trump exited it. Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency chief warned that Tehran has amassed enough material for “several nuclear weapons” and urged diplomatic efforts to restart to prevent such a scenario.

    Another point of contention among among US allies has been Israel’s ambivalent stance on Ukraine. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel has been performing a diplomatic balancing act in relations with Moscow.

    Although it has officially condemned the invasion and regularly sends aid to Ukraine, Israel has yet to send the Ukrainians weapons, and has been criticized for not being more forceful in its criticism of Russia.

    Israel does not want to upset Russia when the Israeli air force is looking to hit targets across the border in Syria. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against its neighbor in recent years, mostly aimed at disrupting Iran’s supply of precision-guided missile technology to Hezbollah.

    Netanyahu referenced this complicated scenario to Tapper, adding that Israel has been “taking action against certain weapons development” in Iran. He however refused to confirm or deny whether Israel was behind drone attacks at a military plant in Iran’s central city of Isfahan over the weekend.

    “I never talk about specific operations… and every time some explosion takes place in the Middle East, Israel is blamed or given responsibility – sometimes we are sometimes we’re not.”

    The wide-ranging interview touched on concerns about Netanyahu’s cabinet, described as the most far right and religious in the country’s history, which has already faced internal tensions and widespread public protests.

    Netanyahu’s governing coalition relies on the support of a number of nationalist political figures once consigned to the fringes of Israeli politics.

    Netanyahu dismissed concerns about the inflammatory rhetoric and actions of these members, saying: “I’ve got my two hands on the wheel.”

    Pressed on some of those extreme statements – including reports that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described himself as a “fascist homophobe” – Netanyahu said: “Well, a lot of people say a lot of things when they’re not in power. They sort of temper themselves when they get into power. And that’s certainly the case here.”

    Netanyahu accused critics of hypocrisy and not holding a similar lens against his predecessors, while adding: “Look, I’m controlling the government, and I’m responsible for its policies, and the policies are sensible, and responsible, and continue to be that.”

    The six-time prime minister also rejected criticism of his government’s push for judicial reforms, that would give parliament (and by extension the parties in power) the ability to overturn supreme court rulings, appoint judges, and remove from ministries legal advisers whose legal advice is binding.

    This comes after he was forced to dismiss key ally Aryeh Deri from his ministerial posts after the High Court ruled that it was unreasonable to appoint the Shas party leader to positions in government due to his criminal convictions.

    Netanyahu told Tapper that he believed the changes would “make democracy stronger.”

    His country has seen ongoing demonstrations against judicial reforms, drawing tens of thousands of Israelis to the streets in January.

    Meanwhile, Netanyahu continues to face charges on three separate cases in a long-running corruption trial that has dogged him politically. He has repeatedly denied all the charges against him, and has described the trial as a “witch hunt.”

    When asked whether there was an truth to claims that Netanyahu was trying to override the judiciary due to his own interests, he said “that’s false. None of the reforms that we’re talking about… have anything to do with my trial.”

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  • Blinken to visit Israel and West Bank amid outbreak in violence

    Blinken to visit Israel and West Bank amid outbreak in violence

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    Blinken to visit Israel and West Bank amid outbreak in violence – CBS News


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    CBS News foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab reports from Jerusalem ahead of a visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is traveling to Israel and the West Bank amid an outbreak of violence that has raised security concerns in the region.

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  • Two wounded in shooting in Jerusalem, police say, after synagogue attack leaves seven dead | CNN

    Two wounded in shooting in Jerusalem, police say, after synagogue attack leaves seven dead | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Two people were wounded in a shooting attack in Jerusalem on Saturday, emergency services say, the day after a gunman killed at least seven people near a synagogue in the city.

    The two men injured in the City of David area of Jerusalem on Saturday, one aged 22 and one in his 40s, are father and son, according to police. A 13-year-old who police say shot and wounded the pair was “neutralized and injured” by “two passers-by carrying licensed weapons.”

    Tensions in Israel and the Palestinian territories remain high after Friday’s shooting, which police chief Yaakov Shabtai described as “one of the worst terror attacks in the past few years.” The shooter in that attack was also later killed by police forces, according to police.

    “As a result of the shooting attack, the death of 7 civilians was determined and 3 others were injured with additional degrees of injury,” police said.

    Five of the shooting victims were pronounced dead at the scene, Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency rescue service said: four men and a woman. Five people were transported to hospitals, where another man and woman were declared dead. Among the wounded is a 15-year-old boy, the MDA said.

    The attack occurred around 8:15 p.m. local time on Friday, near a synagogue on Neve Yaakov Street, according to a police statement.

    Shabtai said the gunman “started shooting at anyone that was in his way. He got in his car and started a killing spree with a pistol at short range.” He then fled the scene in a vehicle and was killed after a shootout with police forces, police said.

    Police identified the gunman as a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem, saying in a statement that he appeared to have acted alone. East Jerusalem is a predominantly Palestinian area of the city, which was captured by Israel in 1967.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged people against revenge attacks on Friday night. “I call on the people not to take the law into their own hands. For that purpose we have an army, police and security forces. They act and will act according to the cabinet instructions,” he said.

    Friday’s incident came one day after the deadliest day for Palestinians in the West Bank in over a year, according to CNN records.

    On Thursday, Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians and wounded several others in the West Bank city of Jenin, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, prompting the Palestinian Authority to suspend security coordination with Israel. A tenth Palestinian was killed that day in what Israel Police called a “violent disturbance” near Jerusalem.

    Overnight, on Friday morning local time, Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza strip after rockets were fired towards Israel.

    Israel’s controversial National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the scene of the attack on Friday evening, telling people who were chanting angrily that “it cannot continue like this.”

    “I can tell you, [the people chanting] you are right. The burden is on us. It cannot continue like this,” Ben Gvir, who also leads the far-right Jewish Power party, said.

    Some people on the scene were chanting support for Ben Gvir, saying “You are our voice, we support you.”

    CNN’s Hadas Gold and team, who were also at the scene of Friday night’s shooting, heard what sounded like celebratory gunfire and car horns honking from the nearby predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina.

    The White House condemned the “heinous terror attack” at a synagogue in Jerusalem on Friday and said the United States government has extended its “full support” to Israel, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

    The US State Department also condemned the “apparent terrorist attack” in Jerusalem “in the strongest terms.”

    “This is absolutely horrific,” said State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel. “Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to those killed and injured in this heinous act of violence.”

    Patel said no change to the schedule of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s upcoming trip to Egypt, Israel and the West Bank was expected.

    Israel's Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks with Israeli forces on January 27, 2023.

    The European Union, France and the UK also condemned the shooting.

    “I am appalled by reports of the terrible attack in Neve Yaakov tonight. Attacking worshippers at a synagogue on Erev Shabat is a particularly horrific act of terrorism. The UK stands with Israel,” Neil Wigan, the British ambassador in Israel wrote on Twitter.

    The EU ambassador to Israel, Dimiter Tzantchev, also condemned the “senseless violence,” saying in his tweet, “Terror is never the answer.”

    And the French embassy in Israel tweeted that the incident was “all the more despicable as it was committed on this day of international remembrance of the Holocaust.”

    United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres also condemned Friday’s deadly attack, his spokesman said.

    “It is particularly abhorrent that the attack occurred at a place of worship, and on the very day we commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day,” he said.

    Guterres also expressed worry “about the current escalation of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory,” urging all “to exercise utmost restraint.”

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  • Blinken to visit Israel and West Bank with tensions high after outbreak of violence | CNN Politics

    Blinken to visit Israel and West Bank with tensions high after outbreak of violence | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Jerusalem and Ramallah next week has gained new urgency after a wave of deadly violence in Israel and the West Bank.

    His trip, which also includes a stop in Egypt, was already expected to be complicated, as it will be the top US diplomat’s first visit to Israel since the new Israeli government, which includes ultra-nationalists and ultra-religious parties, took power.

    Now, Blinken is poised to face a rapidly escalating crisis that shows no signs of de-escalation.

    At least seven people were killed in a mass shooting at a synagogue in Jerusalem Friday that is being described as a terrorist attack. Israeli police said the gunman, who was killed by police, was a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem who appeared to have acted alone.

    On Thursday, Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians and wounded several others in a raid on a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin. Another Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli troops later that day in the town of al-Ram, adding to the death toll on what was the deadliest day for Palestinians in the West Bank in over a year, according to CNN records. Then overnight on Friday Israel launched air strikes on Gaza after rockets were fired towards Israel.

    The Palestinian Authority responded to the Jenin raid by announcing that it will cease security coordination with Israel starting immediately.

    While US officials have indicated that the days of violence will not upend the top diplomat’s trip, the White House on Friday condemned the “heinous terror attack” on the synagogue and State Department officials on Thursday expressed concern about the security situation following the Jenin raid.

    “There is the potential for things to worsen in security terms, in terms of protests or any other kind of kinetic action,” Barbara Leaf, the top State Department official for the region, told reporters on Thursday ahead of the synagogue shooting, adding that the department is in close touch with diplomatic and security personnel on the ground. She also urged the two sides to retain and deepen security coordination.

    The Biden administration has been careful in its language and sought to publicly avoid criticizing the new government in Israel, which is led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and includes controversial far-right government ministers. Over the past few weeks, US officials have held numerous engagements with the new government – Blinken’s trip follows visits by national security adviser Jake Sullivan and CIA Director Bill Burns. Israel is one of the US’s staunchest allies and the importance of the relationship was underlined earlier this week as the two nations launched their largest joint military exercise ever on Monday.

    Aaron David Miller, who served for two decades at the State Department as an analyst, negotiator and adviser on Middle East issues, told CNN that he has “never seen an administration engage with a new Israeli Government as frequently and as early and at as senior level as this one.”

    “I think their strategy was basically to say, ‘OK, you formed this government, your hands are on the wheel. You told us you’re in charge, and we’re now going to engage with you directly and intensely. Because if things head south, you’re the one who’s going to have to be responsible with respect to controlling your own ministers,’” he said. Miller said he predicts the relationship between the two administrations will be publicly non-confrontational, especially as Biden looks to ensure he is seen as pro-Israel ahead of a potential US reelection campaign.

    The far-right elements of the new Israeli government, meanwhile, have already exacerbated tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.

    The new national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir has previously been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism. Earlier this year, after being named minister, he visited the Jerusalem compound known as Temple Mount by Jews and the Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary by Muslims, in a move that drew international condemnation.

    Although he visited during open hours for non-Muslims, his visit was seen as controversial because Ben Gvir has publicly called for changes to the delicate status quo agreement that governs the compound.

    State Department spokesman Ned Price responded at the time by saying that the US believed the visit has “the potential to exacerbate tensions and to provoke violence.”

    Although the Biden administration has advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there has been very little movement and seemingly few active efforts toward that goal. It is something that Blinken will address during his meetings with Israelis and Palestinians, said Leaf, the State Department official.

    Miller said he does not expect any progress to be made on this issue during Blinken’s visit, which will instead be more of an “extended condolence call” due to the synagogue attack in Jerusalem Friday.

    Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the advocacy group J-Street, which pushes for a two-state solution, said that he believes Blinken’s trip is well-timed, and sends an important message about American involvement.

    He said the administration should try to articulate both privately to the new Israeli government as well as publicly the things that the US would find unacceptable, such as “plans for what amounts to de facto annexation of territory on the West Bank.”

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  • Lethal Israeli raid marks deadliest day in over a year | CNN

    Lethal Israeli raid marks deadliest day in over a year | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians and wounded several others in the West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said, prompting the Palestinian Authority to suspend its security coordination with Israel.

    Hours after the Jenin raid, a tenth Palestinian was killed in what Israel Police called a “violent disturbance” near Jerusalem.

    The death toll makes Thursday the deadliest day for Palestinians in the West Bank in over a year, according to CNN records. It brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces this year to 30, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health figures. That toll includes militants being targeted in Israeli raids, individuals who attacked Israelis, and bystanders, CNN reporting shows.

    Nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, were killed during an Israeli raid of the Jenin refugee camp, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

    Israeli security forces said they were operating in Jenin Thursday to apprehend a “terror squad belonging to the Islamic Jihad terror organization,” saying in a statement that it killed three “terrorists.”

    “The Islamic Jihad terror operatives were heavily involved in executing and planning multiple major terror attacks, including shooting attacks on IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians,” the joint statement from the Israel Defense Forces, Israel Security Agency and Border Police said.

    The statement said two armed suspects were “neutralized” while fleeing and that a third was neutralized at the scene. Another suspect surrendered, they said.

    Israeli forces reported no injuries on their side, but said they were aware of “claims regarding additional casualties during the exchange of fire” and were investigating.

    The Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC) said Israeli forces initially prevented medics from entering Jenin camp, making it difficult to reach injured individuals, four of whom were in critical condition.

    The PRC said Israeli forces also fired tear gas canisters towards the Jenin Government Hospital, causing inhalation injuries among children.

    Later on Thursday, a 22-year-old Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli troops in Al-Ram near Jerusalem, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said, making him the tenth Palestinian killed that day.

    Family members of one of the Palestinian people killed during the Israeli raid on January 26, 2023 mourn his death during his funeral procession in Jenin.

    Israel Border Police said they were responding to a “violent disturbance” in the city and that “a terrorist who shot fireworks from a short range at our forces “was neutralized.” The force said in a statement that one of its officers had also fired at and hit a second person who allegedly shot fireworks at them.

    Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh called on the United Nations and international human rights organizations to “intervene urgently to provide protection … and stop the bloodshed of children, youth and women.”

    The Palestinian Authority also announced it will cease security coordination with Israel starting immediately, its Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Abu Rudineh told a news conference in Ramallah in the wake of the raid.

    Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli raid in Jenin on January 26, 2023.

    “In light of the repeated aggression against our people and the flouting of the signed agreements, including security ones, we consider that security coordination with the Israeli occupation government no longer exists as of now,” Abu Rudineh said.

    Coordination between Israel and the Palestinians involves a range of civilian and security matters, including sharing of some intelligence for security operations targeting militant groups – seen as key to preventing terror attacks.

    But Palestinian Authority leadership has come under pressure to cut the coordination, especially over the past year which has seen some of the highest levels of violence and death for both Palestinians and Israelis in years.

    The Palestinian Authority previously suspended security coordination for several months in 2020, after Israel announced plans to annex parts of the West Bank as part of former President Donald Trump’s peace plan. The annexation did not proceed and security coordination resumed.

    Last year was the deadliest for both Palestinians in the West Bank and for Israelis in nearly two decades, CNN analysis of official statistics on both sides showed.

    Israel’s top military officer told CNN “fighting terrorism is a complex mission,” in the wake of Thursday’s fatal Israeli raid. Herzi Halevi, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff, was speaking to CNN’s Hadas Gold shortly after the raid, and before he had been fully briefed on it.

    An IDF spokesperson later told CNN the military was responding to intelligence about an imminent attack.

    “We went into Jenin in daylight,” the spokesperson said, underlining that the decision to operate in daylight rather than overnight, as the IDF usually does, shows how “urgent” the mission was.

    When the forces arrived at the targeted building they “came under heavy fire and returned fire.”

    The suspects were barricaded in a house when the IDF arrived, “so in addition the forces used an anti-tank shoulder-fired missile.”

    “We are aware of reports a woman in her 60s, to our sorrow, was killed during the operation. We do not yet know on whom to assign responsibility, who fired and where she was,” the spokesperson added.

    Israel is increasing its defensive posture against Palestinian militant attacks in the wake of the raid, the Ministry of Defense said.

    On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces said it had launched air strikes targeting an “underground rocket manufacturing site belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization in Maghazi in the central Gaza Strip.”

    “This strike will significantly impede Hamas’ intensification and armament efforts,” it added in a statement posted on the force’s official Telegram channel.

    It said the strikes were in response to the launching of three rockets from the Gaza Strip on Thursday. One of the rockets had been intercepted, one had fallen in an open area and another had fallen inside the Gaza Strip, the IDF said.

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  • Nighttime Israeli arrests haunt Palestinian kids, families

    Nighttime Israeli arrests haunt Palestinian kids, families

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    BALATA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP) — Yousef Mesheh was sleeping in his bunk bed when Israeli forces stormed into his home at 3 a.m.

    Within moments, the 15-year-old Palestinian said he was lying on the floor as troops punched him, shouting insults. A soldier struck his mother’s chest with his rifle butt and locked her in the bedroom, where she screamed for her sons.

    Yousef and his 16-year-old brother, Wael, were hauled out of their home in Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank. Yousef was in a sleeveless undershirt and couldn’t see without his glasses.

    “I can’t forget that night,” Yousef told The Associated Press from his living room, decorated with photos of Wael, who remains in detention. “When I go to sleep I still hear the shooting and screaming.”

    The Israeli military arrested and interrogated hundreds of Palestinian teenagers in 2022 in the occupied West Bank, without ever issuing a summons or notifying their families, according to an upcoming report by the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked.

    The charges against those being arrested ranged from being in Israel without a permit to throwing stones or Molotov cocktails. Some teens say they were arrested to obtain information about neighbors or family members.

    In the vast majority of the military’s pre-planned arrests of minors last year, children were taken from their homes in the dead of the night, HaMoked said. After being yanked out of bed, children as young as 14 were interrogated while sleep-deprived and disoriented. Water, food and access to toilets were often withheld. Yousef said soldiers beat him when he asked to relieve himself during his seven-hour journey to the detention center.

    The Israeli army argues it has the legal authority to arrest minors at its discretion during late-night raids.

    Lawyers and advocates say the tactic runs counter to Israel’s legal promises to alert parents about their children’s alleged offenses.

    In response to a petition to the Supreme Court by HaMoked two years ago, there had been some small improvement when Israel asked the military to first summon Palestinian parents about their accused children. But the progress was short-lived. Last year, the Israeli military rounded up hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank ages 12-17 in late-night arrests, according to HaMoked. Rights activists say they believe such tactics are meant to create fear.

    “The fact that the military is making no effort to reduce these traumatic night arrests indicates to us that the trauma is part of the point,” said Jessica Montell, director of HaMoked. “This intimidation and terrorizing of communities seems actually part of the policy.”

    According to figures reported to the Supreme Court, the army summoned Palestinian parents to question their children only a handful of times in 2021. Last year, not a single family received a summons in nearly 300 cases HaMoked tracked in the West Bank.

    Petty offenses and cases where children were released without charge — as happened to Yousef — were no exception. HaMoked said the numbers are incomplete because it believes scores of similar cases are never reported.

    “They are not implementing the procedure they created themselves,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director for Defense for Children International in the Palestinian territories. “The beating and mistreatment of children during night arrests is really what we’re concerned about.”

    In response to a request for comment, the Israeli military said it tries to summon Palestinian children suspected of minor offenses who have no history of serious criminal convictions. But, the army argued, this policy does not apply to serious offenses or “when a summons to an investigation would harm its purpose.”

    The army would not comment on Yousef’s arrest, but said his brother, Wael, faces charges related to “serious financial crimes,” including “contacting the enemy,” “illegally bringing in money” and helping “an illegal organization.” These charges typically reflect cases of Palestinians communicating with people in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

    Although HaMoked found most cases were soon dropped, the late-night arrests haunted children long after.

    Since his Nov. 7 arrest, Yousef “is not like he was before,” said his mother, Hanadi Mesheh, who also recounted her ordeal to the AP. He can’t focus in school. He no longer plays soccer. She sleeps beside him some nights, holding him during his nightmares.

    “I feel like I’m always being watched,” Yousef said. “I’m frightened when my mother wakes me in the morning for school.”

    Similar stories abound in the area. The northern city of Nablus emerged as a major flashpoint for violence last year after Israel began a crackdown in the West Bank in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks in Israel.

    Last year Israeli forces killed at least 146 Palestinians, including 34 children, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported, making 2022 the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank in 18 years. According to the Israeli army, most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed. Palestinian attacks, meanwhile, killed at least 31 Israelis last year.

    Israel says the operations are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians have decried the raids as collective punishment aimed at cementing Israel’s open-ended 55-year-old occupation of lands they want for a future state. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

    Nighttime arrest raids are not limited to the West Bank. Israeli police also carry out regular raids in Palestinian neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.

    Last fall in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, Rania Elias heard pounding on the door before dawn. Her youngest son, 16-year-old Shadi Khoury, was sleeping in his underwear. Israeli police burst into their home, shoved Khoury to the floor and pummeled his face. Blood was everywhere, she said, as police dragged him to a Jerusalem detention center for interrogation.

    “You can’t imagine what it’s like to feel helpless to save your child,” Elias said.

    In response to a request for comment, the Israeli police said they charged Khoury with being part of a group that threw stones at a Jewish family’s car on Oct. 12, wounding a passenger.

    Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new ultra-nationalist government, parents say they fear for their children more than ever. Some of the most powerful ministers are Israeli settlers who promise a hard-line stance against the Palestinians.

    “This is the darkest moment,” said activist Murad Shitawi, whose 17-year-old son Khaled was arrested last March in a night raid on their home in the West Bank town of Kfar Qaddum. “I’m worried for my sons.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Sam McNeil in Balata refugee camp, West Bank, contributed to this report.

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  • Israel demolishes parts of West Bank hamlet set for eviction

    Israel demolishes parts of West Bank hamlet set for eviction

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    JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has demolished homes, water tanks and olive orchards in two Palestinian villages in the southern West Bank where some residents are at risk of imminent expulsion, residents and activists said Wednesday.

    One of the villages whose structures were demolished on Tuesday is part of an arid area of the West Bank known as Masafer Yatta, which the Israeli military has designated as a live-fire training zone. Some 1,000 residents of the eight hamlets that make up Masafer Yatta are slated for expulsion, an order Israel’s Supreme Court upheld in May after a two-decade legal battle.

    According to images shared by local residents and activists, armored vehicles escorted construction equipment to the demolitions in the villages of Ma’in and Shaab al-Butum, which is part of Masafer Yatta.

    Guy Butavia, an activist with the Israeli rights group Taayush, said the army razed five homes, animal pens and cisterns, spilling the contents of people’s lives out onto the cold desert.

    “They come and demolish your house. It’s winter. It’s cold. What’s next? Where are they going to sleep that night?” he said.

    Most residents of the area have remained in place since the ruling, even as Israeli security forces periodically roll in to demolish structures. But they could be forced out at any time.

    Local officials and rights group said Israeli defense officials have informed them that they would soon forcibly remove more than 1,000 residents from the area.

    “There is a genuine concern that a grave war crime will be committed,” said Roni Pelli, a lawyer working with ACRI.

    COGAT, the Israeli defense body that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, declined to comment.

    Both villages are in the 60% of the occupied West Bank known as Area C, where the Israeli military exercises full control under interim peace agreements reached with the Palestinians in the 1990s. Palestinian structures built without military permits — which residents say are nearly impossible to obtain — are at risk of demolition.

    Tuesday’s demolition comes against the backdrop of a new government in Israel, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where proponents of Israel’s West Bank settlement enterprise hold influential portfolios and are expected to both drive up settlement building and suppress construction for Palestinians in Area C.

    The families living in Masafer Yatta say they’ve herded their sheep and goats across the area long before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war.

    But Israel says the nomadic Arab Bedouin had no permanent structures when the military declared the area a firing and training zone in the early 1980s. In November 1999, security forces expelled some 700 villagers and destroyed homes and cisterns.

    A twenty-year legal battle began the following year that ended in 2022 with the Israeli Supreme Court denying an additional hearing in October over the expulsion.

    While previous Israeli governments have for decades demolished homes in the area, the current government is expected to step up demolitions in the area.

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  • Israel’s rightward shift leaves its new Arab allies in an awkward spot | CNN

    Israel’s rightward shift leaves its new Arab allies in an awkward spot | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in today’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, CNN’s three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Abu Dhabi, UAE
    CNN
     — 

    It was a rare embrace between one of Israel’s most controversial politicians and an Arab ambassador. Itamar Ben Gvir and the United Arab Emirates’ Ambassador to Israel Mohamed Al Khaja clutched each other’s hands in a warm greeting in Tel Aviv in early December.

    “Birds of a feather flock together,” wrote a columnist in Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, arguing that the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel gain recognition from four Arab states including the UAE in 2020, did little to moderate Israel’s position on the Palestinians. Ben Gvir, he said, was “a superstar in the UAE.”

    Israel on Thursday swore in what is likely to be the most right-wing government in its history, led by six-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ben Gvir, an extremist who has been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism, became national security minister. Bezalel Smotrich, who supports abolishing the Palestinian Authority and annexing the West Bank, became finance minister.

    Both politicians were invited to national day celebrations in December hosted by the UAE and Bahrain, which were among the nations that normalized relations with Israel, along with Morocco and Sudan in 2020.

    “The Emirates are here to show that unity equals prosperity,” Al Khaja was cited by the Times of Israel as saying at his country’s national day celebration, where he was photographed with Ben Gvir. “We will continue to use diplomacy to deepen connections through friendship and mutual respect.”

    The public embrace of figures that are hated in the Arab world – and are divisive within Israel itself – is a rare gesture on the part of Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel.

    Egypt and Jordan, who recognized Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively, have had what observers have called a “cold peace” with Israel.

    In his phone call to congratulate Netanyahu on returning as prime minister, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi “emphasized the need to avoid any measures that would lead to tension and complicate the regional situation.” Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned in a CNN interview last month that his nation was “prepared” for conflict should the situation change at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, of which he is the custodian.

    The rightward direction of Israeli politics puts Israel’s new Arab partners in an awkward position regarding the Palestinian cause, which remains a central issue among Arab publics.

    “It is awkward not just for us (in the UAE), but for everybody, in America, and all over the place,” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political science professor in the UAE, told CNN. “It is a dilemma, but the way to deal with it is just to wait and see.”

    An opinion poll by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in July 2022 showed that support for the Abraham Accords had dropped in Gulf countries to a minority view, including the UAE and Bahrain, where more than 70% of the public views the agreement negatively. The data however also showed that around 40% of people in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain support maintaining business and sporting ties with Israel.

    The normalizing states appear to be cognizant of that. On Friday, all four Arab states continued the tradition of supporting the Palestinians at the United Nations by voting at the General Assembly to seek the International Criminal Court’s opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Netanyahu called the vote “despicable.”

    But Israeli media has reported that behind the scenes, the Emiratis have also been sending messages of concern to Netanyahu about the inclusion of extremists in his government. Ahead of the Israeli elections, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed warned Netanyahu against including Ben Gvir and Smotrich in his government, the Times of Israel reported, citing a senior official. Axios, which first reported the news, said Netanyahu didn’t respond.

    The move would be a rare case of one of Israel’s Arab partners showing a preference for the country’s domestic politics.

    The UAE foreign ministry didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    Israeli analyst Zvi Bar’el wrote in Haaretz that the December move to embrace Ben Gvir may have been linked to Abu Dhabi’s desire to steer Israeli policy, adding that it made the UAE “the Arab country with the greatest influence on the new Israeli government.”

    The effectiveness of the UAE’s diplomacy within Israel remains to be seen. So far, Israel’s extremist minister seems unrestrained.

    Less than a week since he was sworn in, Ben Gvir made a controversial visit to the al-Aqsa mosque compound escorted by Israeli police on Tuesday. The mosque, which lies in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, is in an area known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif. It is the third holiest site for Muslims and the holiest for Jews, who know it as the Temple Mount. Under current arrangements, non-Muslims aren’t allowed to pray there and Ben Gvir wants to change that.

    The UAE “strongly” condemned Ben Gvir’s visit without naming the minister, and called for the need to respect Jordan’s custodianship of the holy site. It later joined China in calling for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on the matter.

    “However unhappy they (Bahrain and the UAE) might be towards the emergence of Israel’s most right-wing government, it’s clear that they’ve chosen to air these concerns privately, and have stopped short of letting them stand in the way of what they see as an important strategic relationship,” Elham Fakhro, a research fellow at the Centre for Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter, England, told CNN.

    But the UAE has said earlier that the more friendly ties with the Arab world weren’t a green light for Israel to expand its territory. In June 2020, Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, warned Israel that its relations with Arab nations would suffer if there is any “illegal seizure of Palestinian land.”

    Abdullah, the professor from the UAE, said that Abu Dhabi may have some leverage over Israel that it may use privately at times, but added that ultimately “everybody knows that nobody today has any leverage over Israel. Even America.”

    Still, the UAE-Israel relationship is not everlasting, he said. “This relationship is going to be dictated by the UAE… When it doesn’t serve the interest of the UAE… it can collapse at any time.”

    With additional reporting by Nadeen Ebrahim

    Turkey’s ruling party mulls bringing elections ‘slightly’ forward

    Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party is considering a “slight change” on the date of elections scheduled for mid-June, Reuters cited AK Party spokesman Omer Celik as saying on Monday. Since the date of the elections corresponds with the summer holiday season, the party is evaluating bringing it “slightly forward,” he said.

    • Background: Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled to be held on June 18, and Erdogan previously said elections would be held in June. The date change would not amount to snap elections, Celik said.
    • Why it matters: The elections are set to take place as Turkey faces soaring inflation and an economic downturn that could hurt Erdogan’s prospects for re-election. But the government has of late tried to win back voter support through populist moves including wage hikes, retirement benefits, social aid, energy and agriculture support.

    Amnesty condemns Iran for upholding protester death sentence

    Amnesty International on Monday condemned the Iranian supreme court’s decision to uphold the death sentence of protester Mohammad Boroughani, who according to Iranian state media is accused of stabbing a security guard during a protest.

    • Background: Boroughani will be executed under the “moharebeh law,” or waging war against God, the state-aligned Tasnim news agency said. Prior to the supreme court’s confirmation of the sentence, he was sentenced to death by a revolutionary court during a group trial in Tehran presided by notorious judge Abolghasem Salavati, Amnesty said.
    • Why it matters: The protester is among 26 others identified by Amnesty last month as being at risk of execution in connection to the country’s nationwide protests. Iran has already carried out two protest-related executions over the past months of unrest. CNN has verified that at least 43 detainees are facing execution. The situation has drawn strong criticism from several European countries, including Germany, France and Britain.

    Iran’s judiciary indicts two French nationals and a Belgian for espionage

    Iran has indicted two French nationals and a Belgian for espionage and working against the country’s national security, Reuters reported, citing the semi-official Student News Network on Tuesday. The agency did not give the names of the three or say where or when they were indicted.

    • Background: Belgium’s justice minister said last month that Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele had been sentenced to 28 years in prison in Iran for what he called a “fabricated series of crimes.” Iranian media aired a video in October in which two French citizens appeared to confess to spying. The video sparked outrage in France, which said the detainees were “state hostages.”
    • Why it matters: A total of seven French citizens are being held in Iran, France’s foreign minister said in November. Iran has accused foreign adversaries of fomenting the wave of unrest that erupted three months ago. The protests mark one of the boldest challenges to the country’s leadership since its 1979 Islamic Revolution and have drawn in Iranians from all walks of life.

    Regional: #HalaRonaldo (Hello, Ronaldo)

    Soccer fans in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are celebrating the arrival of famed Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo in Riyadh, who touched down in the kingdom on Tuesday ahead of his unveiling ceremony with the Al Nassr Football Club.

    Twitter was flooded with images of Ronaldo wearing the club’s yellow and blue colors, smiling on large billboards in the Saudi capital. Memes showed “sheikh Ronaldo” dressed in Arab attire, and another showed him wearing a jersey with the “Just do it” slogan for his sponsor Nike crossed out and replaced with “inshallah” – God-willing in Arabic.

    A magazine in Saudi Arabia even put out ads for a full-time “Ronaldo correspondent,” Esquire magazine reported.

    “Welcome to the greatest player in the world,” tweeted one Saudi user, sharing a video of a framed photograph of Ronaldo holding his Al Nassr jersey.

    “The streets of Riyadh welcome Ronaldo,” tweeted one Kuwaiti social media influencer, saying Saudis are lucky their country has become home to such a high-status player.

    The celebrations quickly faded for some, however, when a video showing Ronaldo mistakenly refer to his new home as “South Africa” on Tuesday went viral. “So, for me it’s not the end of my career to come in South Africa. This is why I wanna change. And to be honest I don’t really worry about what the people say,” the soccer star said at a press conference in Riyadh on Tuesday.

    Some joked that Ronaldo accepted a large sum to play in Saudi Arabia only to get the country’s name wrong.

    Al Nassr FC announced on December 30 that the footballer was joining their team, tweeting a photo of Ronaldo in its jersey. The 37-year-old was a free agent and immediately available due to his high-profile break-up with Manchester United last month.

    By Nadeen Ebrahim

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  • Israeli army kills 2 Palestinians in West Bank confrontation

    Israeli army kills 2 Palestinians in West Bank confrontation

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    RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli forces killed two Palestinians, including a man claimed by an armed group as a member, during a confrontation that erupted early Monday when troops entered a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said.

    The two men were killed in the village of Kafr Dan near the northern city of Jenin. The Israeli military said it entered Kafr Dan late Sunday to demolish the houses of two Palestinian gunmen who killed an Israeli soldier during a firefight in September. The military said troops came under heavy fire and fired back at the shooters.

    It was the latest bloodshed in the region that has seen Israeli-Palestinian tensions surge for months. On Monday, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem said 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2004, a period of intense violence that came during a Palestinian uprising.

    The Palestinian Health Ministry identified those killed as Samer Houshiyeh, 21, and Fouad Abed, 25. Houshiyeh was shot several times in the chest, according to Samer Attiyeh, the director of the Ibn Sina Hosipital in Jenin. Attiyeh initially said Abed was 17, but the ministry later gave his age as 25.

    An armed group, the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, later claimed Houshiyeh as a member. The group, an offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, published an older photo in which Houshiyeh had posed with rifles. Video on social media showed his body wrapped with the armed group’s flag as his mother and other mourners bid farewell.

    It was not immediately clear whether the second Palestinian killed was also affiliated with a militant group.

    Israel says it demolishes the homes of militants as a way to deter potential attackers. Critics say the tactic amounts to collective punishment.

    The Israeli military has been conducting near-daily raids into Palestinian cities and towns since a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 19 last spring.

    Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, according to B’Tselem’s figures, making 2022 the deadliest since 2004, when 197 Palestinians were killed. A fresh wave of attacks killed at least another nine Israelis in the fall. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

    Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians see them as further entrenchment of Israel’s 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank.

    Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians seek those territories for a future state.

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  • New Israeli government vows to develop West Bank tourism

    New Israeli government vows to develop West Bank tourism

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    The tourism minister of Israel’s new hardline government on Sunday promised to invest in developing the West Bank, calling the occupied area “our local Tuscany.”

    Haim Katz made the comments days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government took office, promising in its coalition guidelines to make West Bank settlement construction a top priority. His coalition includes far-right settler leaders in top posts.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has built dozens of settlements that are now home to roughly 500,000 Israelis.

    The Palestinians claim the entire area as part of a future independent state and consider the settlements illegal — a position that is widely shared by the international community. Israel’s commitment to deepening its control of the West Bank has threatened to put it on a collision course with some of its closest allies.

    At a ceremony Sunday, Katz said he would channel resources to promote tourism in the West Bank. “We will invest in areas that may not have received sufficient support to date,” he said. “For example, our local Tuscany in Judea and Samaria,” he added, using the biblical term for the West Bank favored by religious and right-wing Israelis.

    The West Bank settler community has developed a small tourism sector that includes hotels, bed and breakfasts and wineries. Israel considers these industries to be part of the country’s broader tourism sector, while international human rights groups have said they deepen control of occupied territory.

    Airbnb in 2018 said it would bar listings in the Israeli settlements, but it quickly backed down under heavy Israeli pressure. Last year, Booking.com said it was adding warnings to its listings there.

    On Friday, the U.N. General Assembly asked the U.N.’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank.

    Netanyahu called the resolution “disgraceful” and said Israel is not obligated to cooperate with the International Court of Justice.

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  • Egypt’s leader urges caution for Netanyahu’s new government

    Egypt’s leader urges caution for Netanyahu’s new government

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    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has urged Israel’s new hardline government to refrain from “any measures” that could inflame regional tensions, in a phone call congratulating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his return to office

    CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Sunday urged Israel’s new hardline government to refrain from “any measures” that could inflame regional tensions, in a phone call congratulating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his return to office.

    The leaders spoke days after Netanyahu’s new Cabinet was sworn in, promising in its coalition guidelines to make settlement construction in the occupied West Bank a top priority.

    According to a statement from the Egyptian leader’s office, el-Sissi stressed “the necessity of avoiding any measures that could lead to a tense situation and complicate the regional scene.”

    El-Sissi also said his government would continue its efforts to “maintain calm” between Israel and the Palestinians, the statement added.

    Netanyahu’s office said the two leaders discussed Egyptian-Israel ties and stressed on “the importance of promoting peace, stability and security for the sake of both peoples and for all peoples in the Middle East.”

    Netanyahu returned to power Thursday for an unprecedented sixth term as Israel’s premier, taking the helm of the most right-wing and religiously conservative government in the country’s 74-year history.

    Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank could increase already worsening tensions between Israel and the Palestinians and upset the international community. Most of the world considers settlements built on territories sought by the Palestinians to be illegal and obstacles to peace.

    Egypt and Israel reached a historic peace accord in 1979. Relations have generally been cool between the countries, though behind-the-scenes security cooperation remains strong. There have been growing signs of overall cooperation in recent years.

    In 2021, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with el-Sissi in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, in the first official visit to Egypt by an Israeli prime minister in over a decade.

    The two Middle Eastern countries also signed a deal with the EU in June to increase liquified natural gas sales to European countries that aims to reduce their dependence on supplies from Russia amid the war in Ukraine.

    Egypt has also for years served as a key mediator between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The bitter enemies have fought four wars since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 — most recently an 11-day conflict in May. Egypt has been working quietly to arrange a long-term truce.

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  • UN seeks court opinion on ‘violation’ of Palestinian rights

    UN seeks court opinion on ‘violation’ of Palestinian rights

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    UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly has asked the U.N.’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

    The Assembly voted by a wide margin, but with over 50 countries abstaining, on Friday evening to send one of the world’s longest-running and thorniest disputes to the International Court of Justice, a request promoted by the Palestinians and opposed vehemently by Israel.

    While the court’s rulings are not binding, they influence international opinion. It last addressed the conflict in 2004, when the Assembly asked it to consider the legality of an Israeli-built separation barrier.

    Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour thanked countries that backed the measure.

    “We trust that regardless of your vote today, if you believe in international law and peace, you will uphold the opinion of the International Court of Justice, when delivered,” Mansour said, going on to urge countries to “stand up” to Israel’s new, hard-line government.

    Israel didn’t speak at the Assembly, which voted during the Jewish Sabbath. In a written statement beforehand, Ambassador Gilad Erdan called the measure “outrageous,” the U.N. “morally bankrupt and politicized” and any potential decision from the court “completely illegitimate.”

    Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for an independent state.

    Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory and has built dozens of settlements that are now home to roughly 500,000 Jewish settlers.

    It also has annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city to be its capital. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in settlements built in east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Palestinian residents of the city face systematic discrimination, making it difficult for them to build new homes or expand existing ones.

    The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements to be illegal. Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive holy sites, also is not internationally recognized.

    Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Two years later, the Hamas militant group seized control of the territory from the forces of internationally recognized President Mahmoud Abbas.

    Friday’s resolution asked the International Court of Justice, commonly known as the world court, to issue an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of

    It also asked the court to look at the legal consequences of Israeli measures it said are “aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.”

    And it asks for an opinion on how all Israeli policies affect the legal status of its occupation, “and what are the legal consequences that arise for all states and the United Nations from this status.”

    The vote was 87-26, with 53 abstentions. It followed approvals of the draft resolution in the assembly’s budget committee earlier Friday and in the Special Political and Decolonization Committee on Nov. 11.

    Israel carried out widespread behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts against the measure and decried the Assembly for voting after the Sabbath began Friday evening.

    Ahead of the vote, outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid personally contacted about 60 world leaders while figurehead President Isaac Herzog spoke to many counterparts, according to an Israeli diplomatic official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing private diplomatic efforts.

    The United Nations has a long history of passing resolutions critical of Israel, and Israel and the U.S. accuse the world body of being unfairly biased.

    Israel has accused the Palestinians, who have nonmember observer state status at the United Nations, of trying to use the U.N. to circumvent peace negotiations and impose a settlement.

    The Palestinians say that Israeli officials, especially incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are not serious about seeking peace as they continue to expand settlements on occupied lands. The last round of substantive peace talks broke down in 2009.

    Before the Nov. 11 committee vote, Erdan told U.N. diplomats that approving the resolution would destroy “any hope for reconciliation” with the Palestinians and perpetuate the conflict.

    He warned that involving the court “in a decades-old conflict only to dictate one side’s demands on the other ensures many more years of stagnation” and give the Palestinians “the perfect excuse to continue boycotting the negotiating table to perpetuate the conflict.”

    After that committee vote, Mansour said “our people are entitled to freedom,” stressing that “nothing justifies standing with Israeli occupation and annexation, its displacement and dispossession of our people.”

    The court is expected to solicit opinions from dozens of countries before issuing its opinion months from now. Israel has not said whether it will cooperate.

    It is not the first time the world court has been asked to weigh in on the conflict.

    In 2004, the court said that a separation barrier Israel built was “contrary to international law” and called on Israel to immediately halt construction.

    Israel has said the barrier is a security measure meant to prevent Palestinian attackers from reaching Israeli cities. The Palestinians say the structure is an Israeli land grab because of its route through east Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank.

    Israel has ignored the 2004 ruling, and Friday’s resolution demands that Israel comply with it, stop construction of the wall and dismantle it. It says Israel should also make reparations for all damage caused by the wall’s construction, “which has gravely impacted the human rights” and living conditions of Palestinians.

    The request for the court’s advisory opinion is part of a wide-ranging resolution titled “Israeli practices and settlement activities affecting the rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories.”

    ———

    Associated Press journalists Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed.

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  • Today in History: December 27, Soviets take Afghanistan

    Today in History: December 27, Soviets take Afghanistan

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    Today in History

    Today is Tuesday, Dec. 27, the 361st day of 2022. There are four days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Dec. 27, 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin (hah-FEE’-zoo-lah ah-MEEN’), who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal.

    On this date:

    In 1822, scientist Louis Pasteur was born in Dole, France.

    In 1831, naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a round-the-world voyage aboard the HMS Beagle.

    In 1904, James Barrie’s play “Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” opened at the Duke of York’s Theater in London.

    In 1932, New York City’s Radio City Music Hall first opened.

    In 1945, 28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank.

    In 1958, American physicist James Van Allen reported the discovery of a second radiation belt around Earth, in addition to one found earlier in the year.

    In 1985, Palestinian gunmen opened fire inside the Rome and Vienna airports in terrorist attacks that killed 19 people; four attackers were slain by police and security personnel. American naturalist Dian Fossey, 53, who had studied gorillas in the wild in Rwanda, was found hacked to death.

    In 1995, Israeli jeeps sped out of the West Bank town of Ramallah, capping a seven-week pullout giving Yasser Arafat control over 90 percent of the West Bank’s 1 million Palestinian residents and one-third of its land.

    In 1999, space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew returned to Earth after fixing the Hubble Space Telescope.

    In 2001, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced that Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners would be held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

    In 2002, a defiant North Korea ordered U.N. nuclear inspectors to leave the country and said it would restart a laboratory capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons; the U.N. nuclear watchdog said its inspectors were “staying put” for the time being.

    In 2016, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (shin-zoh AH’-bay), accompanied by President Barack Obama, visited Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, where he offered his “sincere and everlasting condolences to the souls of those who lost their lives” in Japan’s 1941 attack; Abe did not apologize, but conceded his country “must never repeat the horrors of war again.” Actor Carrie Fisher died in a hospital four days after suffering a medical emergency aboard a flight to Los Angeles; she was 60.

    Ten years ago: An Indian-born man, Sunando Sen, was shoved to his death from a New York City subway platform; suspect Erika Menendez later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. (Authorities say Menendez pushed Sen because she thought he was Muslim; Sen was Hindu.) Retired Army general Norman Schwarzkopf, 78, died in Tampa, Florida.

    Five years ago: Freezing temperatures and below-zero wind chills socked much of the northern United States. Houston Astros star second baseman Jose Altuve was named AP Male Athlete of the Year after leading the team to its first World Series title. A power outage struck parts of Disneyland in California, forcing some guests to be escorted from stalled rides.

    One year ago: U.S. health officials cut isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans infected with the coronavirus from 10 to five days, and similarly shortened the time that close contacts needed to quarantine; officials said the guidance was in keeping with growing evidence that people with the coronavirus were most infectious in the two days before and the three days after symptoms developed. Defense officials said a U.S. Navy warship, the USS Milwaukee, remained in port in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with about two dozen sailors – or nearly a quarter of its crew – testing positive for COVID-19.

    Today’s Birthdays: Actor John Amos is 83. Rock musician Mick Jones (Foreigner) is 78. Singer Tracy Nelson is 78. Actor Gerard Depardieu is 74. Jazz singer-musician T.S. Monk is 73. Singer-songwriter Karla Bonoff is 71. Rock musician David Knopfler (Dire Straits) is 70. Actor Tovah Feldshuh is 69. Journalist-turned-politician Arthur Kent is 69. Actor Maryam D’Abo is 62. Actor Ian Gomez is 58. Actor Theresa Randle is 58. Actor Eva LaRue is 56. Wrestler and actor Bill Goldberg is 56. Bluegrass singer-musician Darrin Vincent (Dailey & Vincent) is 53. Rock musician Guthrie Govan is 51. Musician Matt Slocum is 50. Actor Wilson Cruz is 49. Actor Masi Oka is 48. Actor Aaron Stanford is 46. Actor Emilie de Ravin is 41. Actor Jay Ellis is 41. Christian rock musician James Mead (Kutless) is 40. Rock singer Hayley Williams (Paramore) is 34. Country singer Shay Mooney (Dan & Shay) is 31. Actor Timothee Chalamet is 27.

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  • Bethlehem welcomes Christmas tourists after pandemic lull

    Bethlehem welcomes Christmas tourists after pandemic lull

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    BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Business is bouncing back in Bethlehem after two years in the doldrums during the coronavirus pandemic, lifting spirits in the traditional birthplace of Jesus ahead of the Christmas holiday.

    Streets are bustling with tour groups. Hotels are fully booked, and months of deadly Israeli-Palestinian fighting appears to be having little effect on the vital tourism industry.

    Elias Arja, head of the Bethlehem hotel association, said that tourists are hungry to visit the Holy Land’s religious sites after suffering through lockdowns and travel restrictions in recent years. He expects the rebound to continue into next year.

    “We expect that 2023 will be booming and business will be excellent because the whole world, and Christian religious tourists especially, they all want to return to the Holy Land,” said Arja, who owns the Bethlehem Hotel.

    On a recent day, dozens of groups from virtually every continent posed for selfies in front of the Church of the Nativity, built on the grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born. A giant Christmas tree sparkled in the adjacent Manger Square, and tourists packed into shops to buy olive wood crosses and other souvenirs.

    Christmas is normally peak season for tourism in Bethlehem, located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank just a few miles southeast of Jerusalem. In pre-pandemic times, thousands of pilgrims and tourists from around the world came to celebrate.

    But those numbers plummeted during the pandemic. Although tourism hasn’t fully recovered, the hordes of visitors are a welcome improvement and encouraging sign.

    “The city became a city of ghosts,” said Saliba Nissan, standing next to a manger scene about 1.3 meters (4 feet) wide inside the Bethlehem New Store, the olive wood factory he co-owns with his brother. The shop was filled with Americans on a bus tour.

    Since the Palestinians don’t have their own airport, most international visitors come via Israel. The Israeli Tourism Ministry is expecting some 120,000 Christian tourists during the week of Christmas.

    That compares to its all-time high of about 150,000 visitors in 2019, but is far better than last year, when the country’s skies were closed to most international visitors. As it has done in the past, the ministry plans to offer special shuttle buses between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Christmas Eve to help visitors go back and forth.

    “God willing, we will go back this year to where things were before the coronavirus, and be even better,” said Bethlehem’s mayor, Hanna Hanania.

    He said about 15,000 people attended the recent lighting of Bethlehem’s Christmas tree, and that international delegations, artists and singers are all expected to participate in celebrations this year.

    “Recovery has begun significantly,” he said, though he said the recent violence, and Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank, always have some influence on tourism.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in parts of the territory, including Bethlehem.

    The Christmas season comes at the end of a bloody year in the Holy Land. Some 150 Palestinians and 31 Israelis have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, according to official figures, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants, but stone-throwing youths and some people not involved in the violence have also been killed.

    The fighting, largely concentrated in the northern West Bank, reached the Bethlehem area earlier this month, when the Israeli army killed a teenager in the nearby Deheishe refugee camp. Palestinians held a one-day strike across Bethlehem to protest the killing.

    Residents, however, seem determined not to allow the fighting to put a damper on the Christmas cheer.

    Bassem Giacaman, the third-generation owner of the Blessing Gift Shop, founded in 1925 by his grandfather, said the pandemic was far more devastating to his business than violence and political tensions.

    Covered in sawdust from carving olive-wood figurines, jewelry and religious symbols, he said it will take him years to recover. He once had 10 people working for him. Today, he employs half that number, sometimes less, depending on demand.

    “The political (situation) does affect, but nothing major,” Giacaman said. “We’ve had it for 60-70 years, and it goes on for a month, then it stops, and tourists come back again.”

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  • Bethlehem welcomes Christmas tourists after pandemic lull

    Bethlehem welcomes Christmas tourists after pandemic lull

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    BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Business is bouncing back in Bethlehem after two years in the doldrums during the coronavirus pandemic, lifting spirits in the traditional birthplace of Jesus ahead of the Christmas holiday.

    Streets are bustling with tour groups. Hotels are fully booked, and months of deadly Israeli-Palestinian fighting appears to be having little effect on the vital tourism industry.

    Elias Arja, head of the Bethlehem hotel association, said that tourists are hungry to visit the Holy Land’s religious sites after suffering through lockdowns and travel restrictions in recent years. He expects the rebound to continue into next year.

    “We expect that 2023 will be booming and business will be excellent because the whole world, and Christian religious tourists especially, they all want to return to the Holy Land,” said Arja, who owns the Bethlehem Hotel.

    On a recent day, dozens of groups from virtually every continent posed for selfies in front of the Church of the Nativity, built on the grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born. A giant Christmas tree sparkled in the adjacent Manger Square, and tourists packed into shops to buy olive wood crosses and other souvenirs.

    Christmas is normally peak season for tourism in Bethlehem, located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank just a few miles southeast of Jerusalem. In pre-pandemic times, thousands of pilgrims and tourists from around the world came to celebrate.

    But those numbers plummeted during the pandemic. Although tourism hasn’t fully recovered, the hordes of visitors are a welcome improvement and encouraging sign.

    “The city became a city of ghosts,” said Saliba Nissan, standing next to a manger scene about 1.3 meters (4 feet) wide inside the Bethlehem New Store, the olive wood factory he co-owns with his brother. The shop was filled with Americans on a bus tour.

    Since the Palestinians don’t have their own airport, most international visitors come via Israel. The Israeli Tourism Ministry is expecting some 120,000 Christian tourists during the week of Christmas.

    That compares to its all-time high of about 150,000 visitors in 2019, but is far better than last year, when the country’s skies were closed to most international visitors. As it has done in the past, the ministry plans to offer special shuttle buses between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Christmas Eve to help visitors go back and forth.

    “God willing, we will go back this year to where things were before the coronavirus, and be even better,” said Bethlehem’s mayor, Hanna Hanania.

    He said about 15,000 people attended the recent lighting of Bethlehem’s Christmas tree, and that international delegations, artists and singers are all expected to participate in celebrations this year.

    “Recovery has begun significantly,” he said, though he said the recent violence, and Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank, always have some influence on tourism.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in parts of the territory, including Bethlehem.

    The Christmas season comes at the end of a bloody year in the Holy Land. Some 150 Palestinians and 31 Israelis have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, according to official figures, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants, but stone-throwing youths and some people not involved in the violence have also been killed.

    The fighting, largely concentrated in the northern West Bank, reached the Bethlehem area earlier this month, when the Israeli army killed a teenager in the nearby Deheishe refugee camp. Palestinians held a one-day strike across Bethlehem to protest the killing.

    Residents, however, seem determined not to allow the fighting to put a damper on the Christmas cheer.

    Bassem Giacaman, the third-generation owner of the Blessing Gift Shop, founded in 1925 by his grandfather, said the pandemic was far more devastating to his business than violence and political tensions.

    Covered in sawdust from carving olive-wood figurines, jewelry and religious symbols, he said it will take him years to recover. He once had 10 people working for him. Today, he employs half that number, sometimes less, depending on demand.

    “The political (situation) does affect, but nothing major,” Giacaman said. “We’ve had it for 60-70 years, and it goes on for a month, then it stops, and tourists come back again.”

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  • Palestinians: Israeli army kills teen girl in West Bank raid

    Palestinians: Israeli army kills teen girl in West Bank raid

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    RAMALLAH, West Bank — A Palestinian hospital announced Israeli forces killed a teenage girl during an army operation in the occupied West Bank early Monday.

    Khalil Suleiman Government Hospital in the northern city of Jenin said Jana Zakaran, 16, was hit with a gunshot in the head and pronounced dead.

    The official Palestinian news agency reported that Zakaran was on her house roof and found dead after the Israeli troops withdrew from Jenin.

    The Israeli military said it was aware of the teenager’s death and that an investigation was underway.

    It added that troops entered the city and arrested three Palestinians wanted on suspicion of attacks against Israelis. Clashes and heavy of exchange of fire erupted between soldiers and suspects, it said.

    About 150 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making it the deadliest year since 2006.

    The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting Israeli army incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

    Israel has been conducting daily arrest raids throughout the West Bank, in an operation prompted by a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the spring that killed 19 people.

    The military says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks, but the Palestinians say they entrench Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year.

    At least 31 people have died in Arab attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank this year, according to Israeli figures.

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