Palestinian Authority to Resume Cooperation with Israel

November 18, 2020

The Palestinian Authority will resume civil and security cooperation with Israel suspended in May over a now-frozen Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian minister said on Tuesday.

Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh wrote on Twitter that “the relationship with Israel will return to how it was” after President Mahmoud Abbas received confirmation that Israel remained committed to past agreements with the Palestinians.

Interim peace accords signed in the 1990s envisaged the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Suspending cooperation with Israel six months ago, the Palestinians said its annexation plans in the West Bank, territory it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, would make a two-state solution impossible.

Renewed Israeli-Palestinian ties could open the way for the payment of some 3 billion shekels ($890 million) in tax transfers that Israel has been withholding from the Authority, whose economy has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Israel collects the levies on Palestinian imports that go through its ports.

In a Zoom video conference organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the decision to resume contacts with Israel was based in part on confronting the health crisis.

Between the hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank, and the tens of thousands of Palestinian workers who commute to Israel daily for work, coordination was needed to help prevent the virus’s spread, Shtayyeh said.

“Our life is so interconnected between us and the Israelis, and there is no way that we can fight viruses by ourselves only,” he said.

Palestinian sources said cooperation with Israel would resume immediately. An Israeli official said “we are very close” to renewing coordination, citing exchanges of messages between Israel’s defence minister and Palestinian authorities.

“One thing that certainly helped the Palestinians (reach their decision) was (Joe) Biden’s election (as US president), which gave them … an excuse to climb down from the tree,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

There was no immediate word on whether the Palestinians would resume contacts with the Trump administration that were severed in protest at what they viewed as a policy biased towards Israel.

But a deal establishing formal relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in August led to Israel suspending annexation moves, smoothing the way towards renewed contacts with Israel.

In Gaza, however, the ruling Islamist group Hamas condemned the rival West Bank-based Palestinian Authority’s decision as a “stab against efforts to achieve a real national partnership”.

(MEMO, PC, Social Media)

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One ‘NO’ Instead of Three! Sudanese Against Normalization

By Zeinab Abdallah

Beirut – News would read that Egypt and Jordan were the first to normalize ties with the enemy of the Arab and Muslim nation, and were then followed by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.

No! It is not the right way to report this particular ‘achievement’. It was the regime in each of Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan that started cozying up with the occupying regime. When it comes to peoples, they are not the same as their governors.

Peoples are usually blamed for what their rulers commit. However, it is certain for those who refuse to submit that they are capable of making the change despite the ruler’s will. Those people who reject humiliation and submission are ready to clean up the dirt they were forced to be covered with, and reverse the conspiracies made by their heads of states.

Those same peoples are ready to pay their lives for the freedom of Palestine. They are motivated by Muslim’s first Qibla, the holy al-Aqsa Mosque.

Commenting on the Sudanese regime’s normalization with the ‘Israeli’ entity, Deputy Head of [Reform] al-Islah Now Party, and former Sudanese minister Hassan Rizk emphasized that Sudan has been backing the Palestinian cause since 1948, had fought next to the Palestinians and Arabs in all their wars.

It was Sudan that unified the nation and raised the three No’s against peace, recognition and negotiations with ‘Israel’, he added. His comment comes in reference to the fourth Arab League summit that was held in Khartoum on August 29, 1967.

The summit took place in wake of the Arab defeat against the Zionist military in the same year, and it came up with the famous Khartoum Resolution that provides three No’s: No peace with ‘Israel’, no recognition of ‘Israel,’ and no negotiations with ‘Israel’ unless everybody’s right is returned.

Rizk referred to this event as historic and made by great leaders such as al-Mahjoub and al-Azhari, however, he explained: “After 72 years of steadfastness and challenge, there came weak leaders who wasted the cause, followed the collaborators and the colonials, and sold the al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestine, and the nation’s dignity.”

Adding that the normalizers will remain with the Arab nation’s betrayers, the former minister stressed that the Sudanese people won’t abandon their principles, but will definitely abandon their betrayers: “We will keep defending Palestine, its lands, and people, and we will be the first to liberate and enter the al-Aqsa Mosque at the end of the day.”

Mr. Rizk made clear that there isn’t any advantage from normalizing ties with the Zionist enemy, explaining that it was tried previously by other Arab and Muslim nations which didn’t achieve anything. “After Camp David, we lost the African nations that were supporting Palestine and boycotting the occupation entity. Those countries normalized ties and became markets for the enemy.”

The Sudanese minister elaborated on the repercussions of the normalization harming those who were stuck in its mud, recalling how Egypt has lost its agriculture, health, security and leadership, and how the Palestinians have lost their unity, arms, and a lot of lands, not to mention their loss of al-Quds, the construction of settlements, razing their houses, and killing and detaining their women and children.

Rizk underscored that the lack of advantage is also applied for Jordan, Mauritania, Central Africa, Eritrea, and South Sudan… among the many countries that normalized ties with the occupation entity. He then added that the ‘Israelis’ are cheap and don’t pay for the favors made for them.

For his part, member of the General Secretariat of the Arab and Islamic Gathering in Support of the Choice of Resistance, and Sudan branch coordinator, Mr. Idriss Abdul Qadir Ayess stressed that Sudan didn’t stop being the reservoir for anti-Zionist enemy rallies, noting, however, that the ruling regime has stabbed the people in  the back, fallen in the arms of the Gulf states and operated upon their orders. He then outlined that this is rejected by the people although the stance of the transitional government has affected a noticeable part of the people.

Therefore, the Islamic researcher and political activist says: “We find that the Sudanese people today are divided due to the crumpling economy. Most of them believe that it is due to the American blockade and sanctions against the nation; however, they still believe that the Palestinian cause is the main reason to resist normalization.”

Mr. Ayess added that most of the Sudanese people are resisting and rejecting normalization, citing the general gatherings made against normalization and the people’s rejection and embarrassment of this step as an example.

Commenting on the country’s opposition groups, the Sudanese political activist considered that the “Islah” Party is unheard among the people because its symbols have participated in Omar al-Bashir’s government, explaining why they are not listened to by the people.

Relatively, he noted that the anti-normalization individuals today are working strongly to make the government retreat its step through media, popular, and legal pressure. He then reiterated that the people of Sudan won’t submit to the regime’s normalization, will reject it in all means, won’t abandon Palestine and the holy al-Aqsa Mosque.

“The people will strongly operate to put the government in front of two choices. The first is that the government retreats its heinous step, and the other is to topple it,” he added.

Between the two choices stand the only “NO” that sums up the ultimate rejection of any relationship with the occupier of Palestine. There is no need to three No’s! Only one “NO for normalization” is sufficient to save the nation from this disappointment and unite it behind the first and last cause: Palestine!

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صواريخ روسية تقتل وتجرح مئات المسلحين من “فيلق الشام” بريف إدلب

 سائر اسليم

طائرة حربية روسية تستهدف بعدة صواريخ معسكراً استراتيجياً لفصيل “فيلق الشام” في جبل الدويلة قرب سلقين غرب إدلب. ومصادر الميادين تؤكد أنها أحدثت انفجارات ضخمة سمع صداها في الأراضي التركية ومعظم ريف إدلب.

استهدفت طائرة حربية روسية بعدة صواريخ معسكراً استراتيجياً لفصيل “فيلق الشام” المدعوم من تركيا في جبل الدويلة قرب سلقين غرب إدلب.

وقالت مصادر “الميادين نت” إن الصواريخ استهدفت المعسكر بشكلٍ كامل، محدثة انفجارات ضخمة سمع صداها في الأراضي التركية ومعظم ريف إدلب.

وأكدت المصادر أنَّ الضربة الجوية أدت إلى تدمير كامل المعسكر الّذي يضمّ نخبة من مقاتلي الفيلق ومدربين عسكريين محليين وأجانب. ويتم من خلاله تخريج مقاتلي النخبة الذين تستعين بهم تركيا لتنفيذ مهام خاصة بها في إدلب ومناطق نفوذها شمال حلب.

وبلغت الحصيلة الأولية لعدد القتلى أكثر من 100 قتيل ونحو 200 جريح، معظمهم في حالة حرجة، إضافة إلى تدمير كامل العتاد.

يشار إلى أنه عقب قمة روسية تركية مشتركة لبحث التطورات الأخيرة في ريف إدلب، خلُص اجتماع الرئيسين الروسي فلاديمير بوتين ونظيره التركي رجب طيب إردوغان في آذار/ مارس الماضي إلى مذكرة تفاهم حول إدلب، ضمنت وقف إطلاق النار وإنشاء ممر آمن بطول 12 كيلومتراً على طول الطريق السريع M4.

وتسيطر “هيئة تحرير الشام” وفصائل مقاتلة أخرى أقل نفوذاً حالياً على حوالى نصف مساحة إدلب ومناطق محدودة محاذية من محافظات حماة وحلب واللاذقية.

وتتعرض المنطقة بين الحين والأخر لغارات تشنها أطراف عدة، آخرها قصف أميركي أدى إلى مقتل 17 من القيادات والعناصر المنشقة عن “هيئة تحرير الشام”.

المصدر: الميادين نت

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• الجعفري: الجولان المحتل كان وسيبقى أرضاً سورية وهذا أمر لا مساومة فيه
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On Fathi Sheqaqi’s Martyrdom Anniversary, Islamic Jihad Stresses “Sole Option to Wipe Out Occupation”, Irish Lawmaker Demands Immediate Release of Maher al-Akhras

 

Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Sheqaqi

By Staff

On the 25th anniversary on the martyrdom of Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Sheqaqi, the Palestinian movement stressed that resistance, in all kinds and on entire Palestinian lands, is the sole choice to wipe out the occupied and expel it from the Palestinian soil.

The Islamic Jihad emphasized that “it doesn’t recognize the fragile choices of settlement that led to the loss of Palestine and al-Quds, and granting legitimacy to the Zionist enemy on our land.”

“We will remain loyal to the track that was founded by martyr Sheqaqi, and we won’t abandon Palestine, the entire Palestine, as the central cause of the struggle, based on the belief, awareness and revolution, until the liberation of our land from the dirt of the occupier.”

The resistance movement further noted that “the normalizers’ rushing to start suspicious ties with the Zionist enemy will increase our insistence to adhere to our just cause. It won’t deny that Palestine is our central cause. And we fully trust the free people that love Palestine won’t accept the betrayal of their regimes.”

The movement also hailed hunger-striking detainee Maher al-Akhras who is adhering to his choice of achieving freedom.

Irish Lawmaker Demands Immediate Release of Maher al-Akhras

Palestinian detainee, Maher al-Akhras finally gets to meet and hug his little daughter after 92 days of hunger strike. (Photo: via Social Media)

Sinn Fein Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Pat Sheehan, today called for the immediate release of Palestinian hunger striker Maher al-Akhras who has now reached a critical stage, according to a press statement.

“Palestinian prisoner Maher al-Akhras has now been on hunger strike for more than 90 days and is in a critical condition,” the West Belfast MLA said.

“Maher is protesting against the cruel and barbaric Israeli administrative detention policy under which he has been held since July 2020. This policy is currently being used on over 300 Palestinians,” he added.

Sheehan expressed concern that the Israel Prison Services has refused to move al-Akhras to a Palestinian hospital despite his clearly worsening condition.

“The international community must stand up and take action on the cruel and inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoners by the Israeli government,” he said. “Maher al-Akhras must be released immediately.”

The latest reports said al-Akhras is in serious health condition as he struggles to survive 92 days of hunger strike demanding an end to his illegal administrative detention without charge or trial and based on secret evidence.

(WAFA, PC, Social Media)

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