Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi warned on Wednesday of the continuation of military operations in the Gaza Strip, and that they will have security and military repercussions that could get out of control. Al-Sisi said, in a press conference, while receiving German Chancellor Olaf Schulz, that displacing the Palestinians to Sinai means transferring the fighting there and it will be a base for attacking Israel, adding that the siege of the Gaza Strip ultimately aims to transfer the Palestinians to Egypt, according to what Egyptian television reported in a live broadcast.

Al-Sisi added: “If I ask the Egyptians to come out and reject the idea of displacing Palestinians to Sinai, and support the position of the Egyptian state, the world will see millions in the streets of Egypt.” He continued: “Egypt is sincerely keen on peace, and we need not to squander that with an idea that is not implementable.”

The Egyptian President explained that the matter would not be limited to the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, but would also extend to their displacement from the West Bank to Jordan. He pointed out that it is possible to transfer the Palestinians to the Negev Desert until Israel ends its operation in Gaza.

The Egyptian President said that he discussed with the German Chancellor Egypt's efforts to calm the situation in Gaza, and added that "Egypt has not closed the Rafah crossing since the beginning of the crisis," calling for allowing humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip.

For his part, the German Chancellor said that Egypt and Germany agree not to expand the conflict in Palestine.

Source: Middle East

On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden accused Palestinian resistance factions of being behind the Al-Ahly Baptist Hospital massacre in the Gaza Strip.

Biden said during a joint press conference with Israeli occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his arrival in Tel Aviv: “I was sad and angry about the explosion in the Baptist Hospital yesterday.”

Addressing Netanyahu, he added: “It seems that the other side is behind this, not you,” referring to the resistance factions in the Gaza Strip.

The American President stressed his country's determination to ensure that the occupying state has what it needs to respond to the attacks of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.

He stressed that his visit to the occupying state came "so that the people there and in the entire world know that we stand with Israel," claiming that Hamas "committed atrocities against Israel," as he put it.

For his part, Israeli occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Biden’s visit is the first by an American president during a time of war,” pointing out that “today’s level of cooperation with the United States is unprecedented.”

Addressing Biden, he added: “I know that you share our determination to recover those kidnapped by Hamas.”

The US President's visit comes after the cancellation of the Quartet summit, which was scheduled to be held in the Jordanian capital, Amman, with the participation of the United States, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and Jordan, against the backdrop of the Israeli occupation bombing of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which resulted in more than 500 martyrs and hundreds injured.

Since October 7, the Israeli occupation has continued its aggression against the Gaza Strip, in an attempt to exterminate all forms of life in the Strip and forcibly displace its population by deliberately targeting residential areas and neighborhoods, in addition to convoys of displaced persons and medical service providers.

In a toll likely to rise, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced that the death toll from the aggression had risen to more than 3,200 martyrs and about 11,000 people with various injuries, most of them children and women.

The history of Israel has often been a history of conflict. A partial list includes the 1948 Arab–Israeli War that followed Israel’s birth, the Israeli–British–French attempt in 1956 to seize the Suez Canal and topple Egypt’s Arab nationalist leader, the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

 There are also the two Palestinian intifadas and numerous smaller conflicts. To this list must now be added Hamas’s October 2023 invasion of Israel. Thousands of short-range rockets were launched from Hamas-controlled Gaza against towns and cities in western Israel. Hundreds if not thousands of Hamas fighters crossed into Israel by breaking through defensive barriers, flying over them or sailing around them. 

The human toll of these attacks is enormous and growing. More than 900 Israelis have lost their lives. Several thousand have been injured. Some two hundred Israelis attending a concert were killed in cold blood. At least 100 have been abducted. It was terror—the intentional harming of innocents by a non-state actor—on a large scale. It was also a colossal Israeli intelligence failure. The most likely explanation for Israel’s being caught unprepared is less a lack of warning than a lack of attention. As was the case in 1973, the attack has demonstrated that complacency and an underestimation of the adversary can be dangerous. 

It was a defensive failure as well. Deterrence broke down. Expensive physical barriers were overrun. Israeli military readiness and troop levels were woefully inadequate, possibly because attention had shifted to protecting settlers in the occupied West Bank. There will surely be official inquiries and independent investigations. Why Hamas attacked remains a subject of debate. The most likely explanation is that the group wanted to demonstrate that it alone—not the Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank and not Arab governments—is able and willing to protect and promote Palestinian interests. The timing of the assault is another matter. It’s possible that the date was chosen to coincide with the last successful surprise attack against Israel, carried out by Egypt and Syria 50 years ago almost to the day. 

But the planning and training for the attack took place over months, which suggests a strategic purpose not tied to a specific event. The timing may have been motivated by a desire to disrupt the growing momentum in negotiation to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, an outcome strongly opposed by Iran, the principal backer of Hamas. Hamas may also have sought to take advantage of Israeli political divisions. Or all of the above. The Hamas attackers took hostages back to Gaza for two reasons: to limit Israel’s freedom of action lest those individuals be placed at even greater risk, and to exchange them for Hamas operatives held in Israeli jails.

Israel now faces an acute dilemma. It wants to deal a decisive blow to Hamas, both to weaken the organization militarily and to discourage future attacks and Iranian support for them. And it wants to accomplish this without bringing Hezbollah, which has some 150,000 rockets in Lebanon that could reach much of Israel, directly into the conflict. It also doesn’t want the war to expand to the West Bank. Restoring meaningful deterrence without widening the war will be difficult. 

There is the additional consideration that Israel’s military options are limited. The hostages are one reason. In addition, occupying—or, more precisely, reoccupying—Gaza would be a nightmare. There are few, if any, military undertakings more difficult than urban warfare, and Gaza is one of the most densely populated urban environments in the world. Many Israeli soldiers would lose their lives or be captured in such an operation. Massive attacks from the air, designed to avoid the need for a ground invasion, will inevitably kill or injure a significant number of innocent inhabitants of Gaza, thereby decreasing international sympathy and support for Israel. 

Efforts to shut off Gaza’s supplies of food, water, fuel and electricity will also be counterproductive. Regional and international pressure for a ceasefire would surely mount. There’s also the question of the operation’s strategic objective. Hamas cannot be eliminated, because it represents an ideology as organization. Efforts to destroy it risk building support for it. 

What comes to mind is the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the famous question posed by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who wondered whether American drone strikes on suspected terrorists, which at times killed innocents, were effective. His question—‘Are we creating more terrorists than we’re killing?’—remains worth asking. All of which is to say that while there must be a military component to Israel’s response to its security challenge, including reconstituting Israel’s ability to defend itself from attacks and targeted strikes on terrorists in Gaza, there is no solely military answer. 

A diplomatic element will need to be introduced into the equation, including a credible Israeli plan for bringing about a viable Palestinian state. There’s an American saying that you can’t beat something with nothing. Rewarding those Palestinians who are willing to reject violence and reach an accommodation with Israel is still the best way to marginalize Hamas.

AUTHOR 

Richard N. Haass is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations- Australia 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, condemned the brutal Israeli bombing of Al-Ahly Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of hundreds of sick and injured people, health workers and civilian residents who took refuge in the hospital in search of safety.

Turk also condemned the bombing of a UNRWA school in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, which was housing more than 4,000 civilians who were forced to flee their homes, stressing the need to immediately stop the violence and killing.

Turk called on influential countries to work to end the bloodshed, protect civilians and allow urgent access to humanitarian aid to all who need it, and hold accountable those responsible for flagrant violations of human rights and international law.

Reports: Biden’s visit is not the reason for postponing the ground invasion. * American military support “will bring a price, represented by an American attempt to demarcate the borders of the battle front, especially for the Israeli government, and expectations now are that we will allow humanitarian steps in the southern Gaza Strip.”

Israeli reports said today, Wednesday, that the visit of US President Joe Biden did not lead to the postponement of an Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, and that the unprecedented American support for Israel in the war on Gaza is aimed at defining the borders of the war and not expanding it to other fronts.

Maariv newspaper reported, “The entry of Israeli army forces into Gaza was not postponed due to Biden’s visit. The considerations are different and related to military considerations and the approval of plans and orders, as a result of the missions that have changed.”

The newspaper added, "It is very clear that showing American power will bring a price, represented by an American attempt to demarcate the borders of the battle front, especially for the government in which there are ministers and members of the Knesset who do not stop criticizing the Biden administration."

The newspaper reported that the Israeli army believes that the war on Gaza will last at least four months, “and it is not certain that this is what the Americans want, as there is a huge possibility that this war will affect the entire stability in the region.”

Regarding the humanitarian crisis taking place in the Gaza Strip, the newspaper “Haaretz” quoted the former head of the political department in the Ministry of Defense, Zohar Balti, as saying, “The Americans give us time to work in Gaza. There is no pressure on us regarding time, but there are expectations of us to allow “With humanitarian steps in the southern Gaza Strip, to which we asked Palestinian citizens to move.”

The newspaper considered that American military support would lead, in the future, to demanding that Israel make concessions, and that if contacts were resumed regarding an agreement to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, these contacts would not be isolated from “the issue of advancing relations with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.”

...a text entitled “On the Iron Wall” (1923), Jabotinsky mocked Zionists who were trying to promote that the Arabs in Palestine were either “idiots who can be deceived by a diluted formulation of our true (Zionist) goals,” or “that they are a greedy tribe that will cede to us their right to Palestine vs...”

Israeli follow-ups on the repercussions of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood focus, among other things, on the miserable failure that befell the security wall that Israel erected in the border area with the Gaza Strip. It described it at its inauguration as “smart!” and boasted that it could not be penetrated at all. Most of these follow-ups do not stop at the fact that the flood of resistance swept away this wall as if it were a “layer of dust,” according to one analyst. Rather, they go beyond this to acknowledge that the matter includes something that would deal a strong blow to the image that Israel has built for itself in the world with regard to the structure of its meaning. A very advanced country in the field of production of defense technologies. According to the Israeli website "Israel Defense", which specializes in security affairs, the sudden attack by the Palestinian resistance on October 7, 2023 may lead, from the point of view of the security industries, to pulling the rug from under the feet of the bright promises that these industries made to the Israeli public, and to many of their customers in the country and the outside.

Thinking about building this wall began in 2014, following the aggressive war launched by Israel on Gaza that year, during which the Israeli army was unable to eliminate the attack tunnels or predict their location. Work on its construction continued between the years 2017-2021 and its cost amounted to more than a billion dollars. It is six meters high above the ground, and extends to a depth of tens of meters below its surface.

However, the most important result that can be drawn from the stream of Israeli analyzes in this axis remains in acknowledging the fact of the lack of military deterrence in the face of resistance in the Gaza Strip, even though since the rise of Hamas to power in the Strip in 2007 until now, Israel has launched ten attacks. Warfare, including the current aggression called "Iron Swords", under various names, as follows: "Hot Winter" (2008), "Cast Lead" (2008-2009), "Re-Echo" (2012), "Pillar of Clouds" (2012), “Protective Edge” (2014), “Black Belt” (2019), “Keeper of the Walls” (2021), “Rising Dawn” (2022), “Shield and Arrow” (2023). Prior to these aggressions, and coinciding with the last years of the second Palestinian Intifada, the “First Rain” (2005) and “Summer Rains” (2006) attacks were launched.

In another context, there were those who pointed out that Israel seems to have been fascinated, since its establishment, by the doctrine of the “iron wall” developed by the leader of the revisionist movement in the Zionist movement, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and adopted by the founding generation led by David Ben-Gurion, which is based on the necessity of establishing a defense force for the Jewish settlers. It acts as an "iron wall that the indigenous people will not be able to penetrate."

In this regard, it is right to point out that in one of the texts about this doctrine, a text entitled “On the Iron Wall” (1923), Jabotinsky mocked Zionists who were trying to promote that the Arabs in Palestine were either “idiots who can be deceived by a diluted formulation of our true goals (Zionism). ) or “they are a greedy tribe that will cede to us their right to Palestine in exchange for cultural and economic gains.”

He made it clear that he categorically refuses to accept this opinion regarding the Arabs of Palestine, declaring: They are just like us, knowledgeable of the interior of our souls, keen observers, and trained in the method of sharp argumentation, and no matter what we tell them, they will understand what is going on in the depths of our souls just as we understand what is going on in the depths of their souls. . He literally wrote the following: “They look at Palestine with the same instinctive love and the same organic fanaticism that accompanied the relationship of the Aztecs with their Mexico, and the Sioux with their desert. The illusion of some among us that they will be satisfied with the embodiment of Zionism in exchange for the cultural and economic returns that the Jewish settler brings with him stems from a view of contempt based on the idea of Preconceptions about the Arab people, and from unsubstantiated opinions, consider this race a group of rabble chasing money and willing to give up their homeland in exchange for a good railway network. Presenting matters in this way is completely baseless.”

Source: Arab 48

The Israeli occupation forces continue to carry out arrest campaigns against citizens in the West Bank as part of the comprehensive aggression against our people and systematic mass revenge operations. Last night and at dawn on Wednesday, the occupation forces launched a new arrest campaign, targeting at least 65 citizens from the West Bank, including Jerusalem.

The arrest operations were concentrated in the Hebron Governorate, where the number of detainees at dawn today reached (34) citizens, followed by the Aida camp in Bethlehem, which also witnessed an arrest campaign that affected at least (16) citizens, while the rest of the arrests were distributed in the Nablus and Jerusalem governorates.

Since the seventh of this October, arrests in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, have reached at least 750 arrests, and this statistic does not include workers or detainees from Gaza, as institutions have not been able to date to obtain accurate and clear numbers of detained workers, as well as detainees from Gaza.

It is noteworthy that the highest percentage of detainees in the West Bank was recorded in Hebron Governorate, amounting to about (220) arrests.

In light of the ongoing arrest operations, we confirm a number of facts:

First: The violence and criminality used by the occupation forces is escalating in an unprecedented manner, reaching the point of threatening families and detainees by shooting them.

Second: The majority of those arrested are either transferred to administrative detention, or charges are brought against them on grounds of incitement, specifically in Jerusalem.

Third: There are extreme difficulties in accessing information related to detainees in the first days of detention due to the occupation’s activation of military orders that contributed to this.

Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed that the situation in Gaza is “becoming out of control” due to the inability to deliver ready-to-deliver humanitarian aid.

Ghebreyesus said on the X platform (formerly Twitter): “With every second we delay bringing in medical assistance, we lose lives,” stressing that medical supplies have been stuck for four days at the border.

In its latest statistics, the Ministry of Health announced that the number of martyrs in the Gaza Strip had risen to more than 3,000 martyrs and 12,500 injuries, while the number of martyrs in the West Bank had reached 62 martyrs and more than 1,250 wounded since the start of the aggression on October 7. .

By Muhammad Hussein Abu Al-Hassan

Israel resembles the remora fish, which attaches to the stomach of the shark and feeds on its waste and leftover food. It moves freely in the oceans, safe from monsters. Because she is in the company of the biggest predator.

The beginnings of the Hebrew state were with the Balfour Declaration when Great Britain, and by declaring the state in 1948, was recognized by the two superpowers at that time, the United States and the Soviet Union. Even today, Israel remains the pampered girl of the West, supported by America and Europe with money, weapons, and influence, in its brutal war on Gaza. And its quest to “change the Middle East”; Which threatens waves of anger in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and the return of extremist groups and terrorism everywhere. And severely destabilize the world, even though the solution is possible and available!

Thank you America!

When you follow the media coverage and the statements of American and European officials about what is happening in Gaza and its environs, you realize that they are talking about a “people returning from exile” to their land (Israel), and not about a people who were forcibly exiled from their land (the Palestinians). As for the Arabs, they are trying to prevent the people. The Israelis are unable to live in peace in a homeland they built from nothing, in a land that did not have a people... This “Western hump,” so to speak, is confusing and deplorable. Because it violates all values, ethics and international law.

Imagine the scale of the “war crimes” that Israel commits every minute against the people of Gaza, including genocide, starvation, and displacement, with Western blessing, support, and support that are a blessing to humanity. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Thank you to America for standing with us today, tomorrow and always.” In response to US President Joe Biden’s statements in strong support of the aggression against Gaza, and his sending of the largest aircraft carrier, “Gerald Ford,” off the Israeli coast to show the “red eye” of any party that intervenes militarily to save the Palestinians, in contradiction to the values of freedom and human rights that Washington calls for in its foreign policies. In fact, it contradicts the supposed American interest with Arab and Islamic countries. Not surprisingly, Biden once described himself as a “Zionist,” and that if Israel did not exist, it would have to be invented; Therefore, it can be understood why Biden comes to the region supporting the Israeli plan - and Europe also supports him - to liquidate the issue forever and displace the Palestinians to Sinai and Jordan if possible.

The blatant American bias towards Israel is not new. Minutes after announcing the founding of Israel, on May 14, 1948, US President Harry Truman recognized the new state. There is a revealing quote by Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli Prime Minister: “American support for our country cannot be compared to any other support.” In modern history, we receive the largest American military and economic support at approximately $500 per Israeli annually.” Politicians and decision-makers in Washington disagree on almost all issues, but they often agree to support Tel Aviv.

A special relationship

The relationship between Israel and the West is a complex topic; The war of extermination waged by the Jewish state against the Palestinian people imitates the wars of annihilation of the indigenous peoples of the American Indians and others in North and South America. The underlying reasons for the West’s relationship with Israel vary between interest-based, material, and historical motives related to the legacy of the colonial era and the identity of the Protestant Christian American state influenced by Judaism, to the point of emergence of the term “Christian Zionism,” whose followers believe in the necessity of establishing a Jewish entity in Palestine. In preparation for the second return of Christ and his establishment of the thousand-year kingdom, in addition to other strategic, political and economic motives; As Dr. Abdel Wahab Al-Messiri explained in his book “The Jews, Judaism, and Zionism.”

The Americans, Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University, and John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, tried to search for the secret of the special relationship between the United States and Israel. Walt pointed out that the usual saying that Israel is a vital strategic asset for America, and that they share the same values, cannot explain all this unconditional support from the United States; Noting that this American support for Tel Aviv is one of the underlying causes of terrorism, and a strategic burden on America’s security and stability. With regard to values, Israel's racist treatment of its Arab and Palestinian citizens contradicts American values.

Walt attributes American support for Tel Aviv to the pro-Israel “lobby” in America, which is a loose coalition of individuals and groups that works to influence American policy in support of the Hebrew state, and includes American Jewish organizations, such as “AIPAC” and Christian Zionist groups, and this lobby works in two tracks: intervention In the various American elections, by supporting specific candidates and facilitating their access to government positions, also providing incentives for them to implement the required policies and enact legislation. So much so that most members of the House and Senate realize that any attempt to limit American support for Israel is “playing with fire.” It exposes its perpetrator to a serious accusation of "anti-Semitism." Indeed, US President Jimmy Carter, the sponsor of the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, was not satisfied with that. When he published his book “Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid,” which pointed out that any American politician criticizing Israel is like committing political suicide, warning against the continuation of the current Palestinian reality; Israeli pressure groups attacked him, demanding that he apologize for what he wrote.

Great anger

The influence of the pro-Israel lobby extends to all aspects of American cultural, media, military, scientific, economic, and political life. John Mearsheimer investigated the negative effects of that lobby’s pressure on American foreign policy and its interests. He gave, as an example, the repercussions of America’s support for Israeli brutal practices against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as they lead to great anger. In the Arab and Islamic worlds; Which fuels extremism and terrorism, explaining that supporting settlement in the Palestinian territories and protecting Israel from international condemnations by using the veto and other things, was one of the most prominent motives for the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks, and explaining that the lobby led Washington to invade Iraq, which is one of the biggest blunders in history. American.

Despite the strength of the Israeli lobby’s influence in Washington, it did not always succeed in seizing control of the White House, as happened when US President Barack Obama signed the nuclear agreement with Iran. Israel, with the help of the lobby supporting it, sought to stand in the way of the deal and sabotage the agreement, to the point that Netanyahu He went to Congress speaking and challenging the American president in his home, and when he was succeeded by Donald Trump, he actually took the initiative to freeze the agreement. Gerard Baker wrote an article in the British newspaper "The Times" in which he alluded to the dissatisfaction of some in Washington with the influence of the lobby, and its push by America and the West to stand behind the Israeli aggression against defenseless Palestinians. Baker referred to the protest songs of the 1960s by the American artist Bob Dylan, who won the Nobel Prize, and one of them describes... Israel as a “neighborhood thug,” pointing out that despite Washington’s understanding of the motives for Israeli positions, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party has become openly hostile, not only to specific Israeli actions, but, it seems, to Israel itself, indicating that the United States cannot It continues to give Netanyahu's right-wing government billions annually to commit crimes and atrocities against the Palestinians. For this reason, John Mearsheimer called for America to deal with Israel in a normal manner that takes into account American national interests, and does not deepen the imbalance in regional and international geopolitical balances.

The only guarantee for the stability of the region is that the Palestinian people obtain all their legitimate rights. As for Netanyahu’s boasting that he will change the “Middle East,” it is blind bullying, based on a feeling of power. Depending on the fact that Israel is sheltered in the corner of the American-European West; But it is a feeling full of false arrogance, because it ignores the will and vitality of the people. Even remora fish sometimes become food for predators while they are in the shark's embrace!

A former American official, who directly managed the Israeli-Palestinian file, believes that the time has come to fundamentally reconsider the relationship between the United States and Israel, arguing that “American support for Israel no longer serves American strategic interests.”

“The United States needs to move beyond Israel”

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz says that Stephen Simon, the former director of the US National Security Council for the Middle East and North Africa, under the Obama administration, recently published a book entitled “The Great Illusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East.” In it, he delves into decades of American policy in the Middle East, which has remained largely unchanged during successive administrations.

Haaretz says that Simon's arguments are considered more realistic, because Israel is now witnessing a major turning point in its own democracy, its relations with the Palestinians, and a possible normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, all against the backdrop of US involvement in all of these matters.

Simon does not believe the United States is to blame for any of Israel's current problems. “Everyone is very interested in this current crisis precisely because it feels like a turning point,” he says of the simmering pro-democracy protests against the Netanyahu government’s extremist efforts to weaken the judiciary.

“What we are looking at now goes back to at least the 1930s,” Simon said. “There are technical problems, but the real problems are much deeper.”

“There is no specific strategic interest with Israel”

This brings us to the heart of the matter in Simon's eyes: issues related to Israel are purely political, not strategic. He says: “Why would the administration choose a battle with the current government in Israel over something over which the United States has no control? There is no specific strategic interest, and in the absence of a strategic stake, it is just a matter of politics.”

Simon points to the current political environment, whose roots go back to the late 1990s, as one that creates a structural disadvantage for Democrats, because the party as a whole is moving in a different direction than the Israeli government. “Based on that, why would there be an upcoming US election, where the stakes are really huge, is the Biden administration going into a minefield for this? It seems to me very unwise,” he says.

He claims that matters ostensibly related to strategic affairs such as military assistance are in fact political matters at heart. “It's easy to provide the things Israel wants from the United States,” he says. “A lot of it is primarily financial. We have a GDP of $21 trillion, so who cares if you give $4 billion of that every year (in military aid)? In practice, It's a small amount of money, and it's well spent, so you have to do it,” he says.

“American efforts to resolve the conflict are in vain.”

This extends to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the peace process. Simon says that the United States began to realize during Barack Obama's first term that its efforts were in vain, and also when the efforts of then Secretary of State John Kerry were not met with much enthusiasm.

According to Simon, the foundations of the US-Israel relationship rest on “the liberal mood of a particular era,” first established by Harry Truman. He said: “He was deeply disturbed by the Holocaust and what happened to the Jews, there is no doubt about that... Truman recognized the Jewish state only 15 minutes after declaring the establishment of the State of Israel.”

The Israelis liked it, because they thought it would be more durable than commitments based on shared values. By the end of the Cold War, the United States had done what it set out to do: defeat its adversaries and emerge as the most powerful player in the Middle East, Simon says.

The change took hold during Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, during which he made his claim for office partly on the basis that Obama had seemingly abandoned Israel. This was the first time Israel had been “blatantly used to attack an opposition party,” Simon said.

Manipulating American domestic politics

Simon believes that the Obama administration's decision to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan during the second term is due to personalities and not to a specific strategy. He says, "Why did the Obama administration make that play in the second term to try to do something about the Palestinians? Obama really wanted to do it, so he told them just do it, and it worked more or less how people expected it to work."

If the relationship between Israel and the United States is more about politics than strategy, as Simon argues, then the strategic elements within this relationship exist only as wedges that simply cause further separation between the two parties, such as Iran's nuclear program.

“Israel has the power to go its own way while still extracting resources from the United States,” Simon says. He adds: "Historians may view Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as strategically great for Israel because he succeeded in achieving independence from the United States while at the same time manipulating American domestic politics."

A clear shift in the position of Americans towards Israel

At the same time, the American street itself no longer has the same old mood towards Israel, as opinion polls indicate a clear shift in the position of Americans towards Israel, especially young people.

An opinion poll conducted by Gallup in March 2023 showed that the majority of American voters from the Democratic Party had shifted away from supporting Israel and had become more inclined and sympathetic to the Palestinians, for the first time ever.

Another opinion poll was conducted by the Jewish Electoral Institute in America in July 2021, the results of which showed that 35% of American Jewish voters believe that Israel has become a “racist state” that applies against the Palestinians the apartheid system that the white South African government was applying against citizens. Black people.

Many American writers and analysts attribute the clear shift in American public opinion towards Israel, which is considered Washington's first strategic ally in the Middle East and enjoyed unwavering support from both the Republican and Democratic parties, to Benjamin Netanyahu, the extreme right-wing politician and the person who served as Prime Minister in Tel Aviv for a longer period of time than any other politician.

But the Gallup poll was conducted last February, and the current Netanyahu government, which is described as the most extreme government in the history of the Jewish state, had not spent more than two months in power, which means that the striking change in the positions of the majority of American youth cannot be reversed. Only to that government.

The poll conducted by the Jewish Electoral Institute in America was conducted in July 2021, and at that time Netanyahu was not prime minister. Rather, the Israeli government was an alliance of left-wing parties and also included Arab parties for the first time. It was led by Naftali Bennett and then Yair Lapid, and the American politicians were They describe it as a "reconciliation government."

Therefore, one of the reasons for the shift in the position of American youth, which is becoming closer to the Palestinians than to Israel, may be linked - in no small part - to the Israeli shift towards the right in a fierce and accelerating manner. Extremist religious parties, parties defending settlers in the occupied territories, and politicians convicted of terrorism by Israeli courts, such as Itamar Ben Gvir, Minister of Internal Security in Netanyahu’s current government, have become remarkably in control of Israel and its policies, and they are sparing no effort in eliminating any hope of establishing a state. Palestinian one day.

First went US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, followed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. US President Biden is on his way to Israel, and they are not coming for no reason. Blinken does not enjoy interrupting a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister to take shelter, because Hamas fired a rocket salvo. Americans come to Israel; Because they know that Netanyahu is unqualified and floundering, and they also know that there must be a responsible person, and that no one can be trusted to discuss what will happen in this confrontation with Gaza, as the Israeli newspaper Maariv says.

According to reports, Blinken participated in Israeli war cabinet discussions, and Biden receives regular reports on this situation. This reminds us of the air train of American officials that headed to Israel more than ten years ago, when they feared that Netanyahu would attack Iran. Their fear at the time was unjustified, as Netanyahu did not have the courage to attack Iran, as the Israeli newspaper says. Now, the circumstances are different. It is not that Netanyahu suddenly became brave, that did not happen, but that he simply lost the ability to manage events after the sudden Hamas attack, and therefore the Americans are taking responsibility. Because Netanyahu doesn't.

“Netanyahu has never taken responsibility for anything.”

Maariv says Shin Bet director Ronan Bar admitted responsibility for his agency's failure to warn of the Hamas attack in a letter to his subordinates. The Chief of Staff, Major General Herzi Halevy, acknowledged a few days ago that the intelligence department in the Israeli army, which is under his authority, had failed in its mission.

But only one person is not responsible. What is his responsibility? Netanyahu has never taken responsibility for anything. Not in the Meron disaster, not in the Mount Carmel forest fire, not in Iran's approaching transformation into a nuclear state, nor in the disastrous release of more than a thousand Palestinians in the Shalit deal. He will always find someone else to hold accountable. This is the world champion in long distance responsibility. At the time of receiving medals, honors, or coupons, you find him at the head of the class. But when you look for someone to bear responsibility for failures, he disappears and cannot be found.

And this man's wife, in closed conversations, blames everyone. She says that the Chief of Staff, the head of the Mossad, and the head of the Shin Bet are responsible for the failure. Her husband only did what they told him to do. It's not him who's responsible, it's them. Netanyahu's toxic propaganda machine publishes, in exchange for a fee, leaflets attacking the head of the Mossad. His outdated and ridiculous tactics in the media constantly undermine the position of military leaders and the intelligence system. And his corrupt comrades attack the few men who have taken responsibility for their actions.

The newspaper that launched an attack on Netanyahu says that it is necessary to remember that this man never established a government investigation committee. He is the prime minister who has been in office longer than anyone else, but he never thought about forming any investigative committees. Not even after the deadliest civilian disaster in history at Mount Meron. Nothing to investigate. Everything is clear: Netanyahu is not responsible, and anything else does not matter.

“Netanyahu will not succeed this time in escaping responsibility.”

The newspaper adds: What is amazing is that he thinks this will work this time as well. That he will be able to close his eyes again, that he will find a scapegoat to hold him responsible, and that he will somehow escape his greatest enemy: responsibility. But he is wrong. We will not leave him until he admits the obvious: that he is most responsible.

He is the head of state, the prime minister. He did not hold this position half a year before the disaster, but has been striving for it and clinging to it for more than 15 years. In all these years, he personally formulated the most prominent strategy for his administration: concessions to Hamas. He admitted it, his comrades admitted it, and he said it, wrote it, and called it: We must strengthen Hamas and weaken the Palestinian Authority in order to justify the settlements. In this way, which relies on the principle of divide and rule, he legitimizes this status quo and stagnation, while doing nothing but enjoying his time.

This strategy was not devised by the chief of staff, the head of the Shin Bet, or any other military entity. The Israeli army and defense establishment receive directives from the political authority and put them into practice. When the Israeli army's presentation was leaked, in the midst of Operation Protective Edge, in which it said that the occupation of Gaza would lead to the death of hundreds of people, he wanted to hide behind it to explain to the public why he fled again, avoided taking any action, and once again broke his electoral promise that he had made. 2009.

But the rescue mission has ended this time, Mr. Netanyahu. All your life you have been evading responsibility. In the end, I caught up with you. It is unfortunate that the price we pay for this pursuit is very high, Maariv says.

Blinken's trip to the Middle East was chaotic

In this context, the American newspaper The New York Times said, on Tuesday, October 17, 2023, that the trip undertaken by US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, to the Middle East extended from two to six days, during which he stopped at 10 stops until the morning of Tuesday, October 17. October 2023, which indicates the size and complexity of the diplomatic crisis facing the American Secretary, with the escalation of the war between Israel and the Palestinian resistance factions.

While speaking to reporters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, last Sunday, Blinken said: “I think I forgot how many countries my plane landed in.” But he quickly mentioned the correct number of countries he had visited since leaving Washington on the afternoon of Wednesday, October 11, 2023, which are: Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Emirates, in addition to two visits to Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

This trip conducted by Blinken, which the newspaper described as “chaotic,” began a few days after the Hamas attack, as Blinken advanced the date of his visit to the region that was planned for the following week, and the State Department announced that he would leave to visit Israel and Jordan on October 11. , before returning on Friday, October 13th.

However, with the escalation of the war between Israel and the resistance factions, this plan was quickly canceled, after State Department officials expanded the itinerary of Blinken’s trip to include several other major capitals, in coordination with the White House.

The American newspaper indicates that Blinken has not yet succeeded in achieving one of his goals, which is to secure passage for American citizens from Gaza to Egypt through a border crossing, as hundreds remained stranded at the closed crossing until Monday, October 16, 2023.

But Blinken spared no effort despite his failure so far. After his arrival in the region, on Thursday, October 12, 2023, Blinken and his aides set their trip schedule for the next day, and settled on visiting four countries: Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.

Blinken intensified his meetings by traveling on a quick day trip from Riyadh to the Emirates on Saturday, October 14, 2023, then returned to the Saudi capital again, and prepared on Saturday evening to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

According to the American newspaper, the reporters traveling with Blinken were asked to prepare for the minister’s convoy to leave the residence hotel at any moment in order to go to meet the Crown Prince, but the wait continued for hours from midnight until two in the morning, and then four in the morning after that.

In the end, the prince agreed to meet Blinken after 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning inside his private residence on his farm, which meant denying entry to journalists who had stayed up almost all night.

Officials said it was common for the crown prince to keep his most important visitors waiting. However, the incident was rare and likely frustrating for the sleep-deprived Blinken, who is accustomed to foreign officials accommodating him.

The Russo-Ukrainian war is no longer the only cuisine forging a new world order. Chefs have moved to a new cuisine in the Middle East.

The October 7 war between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip may expand its tables for new players who are not in agreement in the ongoing political calculations. But the moment of war imposed its rules and defined its parties.

This round is not like all previous rounds, in terms of gains and losses. The shock and surprise confused Israel's calculations, and even revealed the emptiness and failure of its multiple intelligence agencies, as acknowledged by the head of the Israeli National Security Council, Tzachi Hanegbi. The blow is painful for Ben-Gurion's grandchildren in power.

The historical circumstance during which Israel was established is no longer appropriate for the dictionary of the twenty-first century. Palestine, which experienced the Nakba during the Israeli rise under international sponsorship, is no longer the traditional Palestine that lived for 75 years as a stage for players from different parts of the world. She was exhausted by promises and maneuvers. Its patience lasted long, and it paid heavy prices for its freedom, its people, its economy, and its stability. Half of its people are displaced and refugees, and the other half lives under the harshest occupation in history, committing the most heinous types of crimes against humanity. This occupation has not been deterred by all initiatives, agreements, nor international laws and covenants from continuing to implement its old, renewed plans that aim to expel the Palestinian brothers from their lands. , and replacing the settlers in their places, in the same way from which the idea of Israeli presence began before 1948.

This time in the wars taking place between the two sides, generations, rules, and balances of power differed. Israel came through a global system that marked the end of World War II in 1945. It is the same system that ignored the Palestinian right. Now this world order is cracking, with cracks in its walls caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war. Features of a phase for a new world order, but this time it will be signed on the morning of October 7, 2023.

The occupant of the White House was still asleep as the clock was a quarter past twelve Eastern time in the United States of America, while the master of the Kremlin was just awake to follow the last point reached by the Russian army in eastern and southern Ukraine. At the same time, the “Chinese Dragon” was trying to decipher the code. The complexities of the new American strategy in the Indo-Pacific region. Everyone was surprised by an unprecedented bloody scene, in one of the Israeli-Palestinian wars, and the cards were mixed up in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing.

Accounting fears chased the ambition of the Big Three. What is going on in the Middle East? Are the pawns of the three-way race moving to the region? Global support for Israel revealed the West's concerns about the new players establishing themselves in the Middle East, as Washington was the quickest to send the newest aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean. The messages carry more than one meaning, messages to its opponents in the region, and other messages that the Russian bear understands, and the Chinese dragon thinks well about.

There is no doubt that amidst these bloody messages, there are losing parties and others who are winning. The initial reading of what is happening now in the Palestinian-Israeli arena will rearrange the regional and international balances once again.

If Washington had openly announced its full support for Israel, showed the red eye to its competitors in the region, took the initiative to provide military, political, diplomatic and media assistance, and blessed the violent Israeli position from the first moment, then this was an incentive for Washington’s allies to move in the same direction. Indeed, they They traveled long distances in a short time in the direction of attacking the Palestinians, and this may have increased the complications of return or self-examination. America is moving according to geopolitical calculations that are broader than Gaza and Palestine, and even broader than the Arab region and the Middle East. The White House wears magnifying glasses with which it sees the future of its seat in the world order, the features of which this war has become part of shaping. Therefore, American calculations will not ignore the alliance of its competitors, which It includes Iran and its arms in the region, in addition to Russia, China and their allies.

If we look at American calculations, Washington sees the importance and necessity of resolving this Palestinian-Israeli conflict quickly, so as not to enter into a war on more than one front, and become divided between Ukraine and Israel. In addition, America has equations that say that a quick resolution will preserve Washington’s position in The prospective international system. At the same time, Moscow sees this conflict as an opportunity to prove itself and the validity of the Russian point of view that it has tried to market since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war. In addition, the Kremlin sees American involvement in this Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a beginning to ease Western pressure on Russia on the Ukraine front, and reduce NATO support for Ukraine; Especially since he will be heading towards Israel.

Beijing also has its own calculations. Everything it has accomplished in the Middle East during the past periods, it wants to confirm and build on to deepen its political and economic presence, as it is concerned with Taiwan and the South China Sea, in addition to the fact that China has a belief that America’s preoccupation with the events of the Middle East will ease the burdens on the Chinese shoulders in the Indo-Arabic region. “Pacific,” not to mention the Chinese vision that sees the heavy American presence in the Middle East as a great opportunity for people to side with Beijing’s policy and not Washington’s policy.

Therefore, this historical round between the two sides, the Palestinian and the Israeli, will not end without redrawing the borders of international balances and powers again, leading to writing a “new edition” of the world order.

Jamal Al-Kashki - Editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram Al-Arabi magazine. Member of the Board of Directors of Al-Ahram Foundation

Source: Asharq Al Awsat

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a television speech on Wednesday, accused Israel of bombing the Baptist Hospital in Gaza and causing the deaths of hundreds. He said that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “crossed all red lines.”

Abbas described the incident as "a great tragedy and a hideous war massacre that cannot be tolerated or allowed to pass without accountability," pledging not to allow Netanyahu's government to escape punishment. He added that he cut short his visit to Jordan and decided to return to Ramallah. He said, "I agreed with Egypt and Jordan to cancel the summit with President Biden," referring to a four-way summit that was scheduled in Amman on Wednesday in the presence of the US President, the Jordanian King, and the Egyptian President.

Abbas continued, "We will not allow a new catastrophe and the displacement of our people again, and we will not leave, no matter the sacrifices. We will not accept any talk other than stopping the war in Gaza." The Palestinian President called on the Security Council to "assume its responsibilities and take the initiative to issue a resolution condemning this crime and stopping the aggression."

He said that the "Israeli plan" to displace Palestinians from their land will not pass. He added, "We will not allow anyone to deport us from our land, as happened in the past... and the past will not be repeated."

The Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Hissein Brahim Taha condemned in the strongest terms the horrific massacre committed by the Israeli occupation by bombing the Al Ahi Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, which left hundreds of Palestinian martyrs and wounded, including women and children, slamming it as a war crime, a crime against humanity, and organized state terrorism that deserves accountability and comeuppance.
Taha held the Israeli occupation accountable for the consequences of its crimes, practices and brutal attacks against the Palestinian people, which contradict all human values and constitute a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
He renewed his call to the international community, especially the UN Security Council, for the need to intervene urgently in order to stop the war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and providing international protection for the Palestinian people.

The Israeli occupation army admitted that it bombed the garage of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City yesterday, Tuesday, announcing at the same time the start of an investigation into the bombing of the hospital in which more than 500 Palestinians were martyred, most of them women and children.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hageri said, "We bombed the hospital garage, but there were no direct hits on the hospital."

The spokesman repeated Israeli allegations that the Islamic Jihad movement was responsible for bombing the hospital, noting that the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) inflated the death toll figures in what he called the "hospital explosion."

Hajri also said, "There are no craters and nothing to indicate that an air strike caused the hospital to explode," adding, "Our radar system showed the presence of missile bursts from Gaza."

Earlier yesterday, the spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said that they cannot meet the needs and that “the massacre is great,” stressing that there is no safe place in the Strip from indiscriminate Israeli bombing.

On the other hand, Al Jazeera's correspondent said that ambulances have not yet been able to recover any victim, and some victims have turned into scattered body parts.

The reporter described the situation as catastrophic, shocking and terrifying, and added that it was clear that the Israeli planes had targeted the hospital grounds, where hundreds of refugees and displaced people were taking refuge.

Source: Al Jazeera

The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, said that most of the victims of the “massacre” at Baptist Hospital in Gaza were “children and women whose features were absent.”

This came in statements by the ministry’s spokesman posted on Facebook, commenting on the Israeli bombing that targeted the vicinity of the Arab National Hospital (Al-Baptist) in Gaza, resulting in the death of more than 500 Palestinians.

Al-Qudra added: “The Baptist Hospital massacre is unparalleled and cannot be described. Hundreds of victims arrived at the hospital and ambulance crews are still removing the body parts.”

He continued: "Most of the victims of the Baptist massacre were children and women whose features were absent. Some of the victims arrived without heads, with torn body parts and viscera out."

He added: "The torrent of victims and the type of injuries exceeded the capabilities of medical teams and ambulances. Doctors were performing surgeries on the ground and in the corridors, and some of them were without anesthesia."

Al-Qudra explained that “a large number of those injured in the hospital bombing are still waiting for operations, while the medical teams are trying to save the lives of others in intensive care,” pointing out that “the remaining treatment capabilities have only a few hours to go before we announce their actual exhaustion.”

An Israeli air strike Tuesday killed about 500 Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people, health authorities in the besieged enclave said.
The strike was the bloodiest single incident in Gaza since Israel launched an unrelenting bombing campaign against the densely populated territory in retaliation for a deadly cross-border Hamas assault on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7.

The Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital (commonly known as the Baptist hospital), bombing took place on the eve of a visit by US President Joe Biden to Israel to show support for the country. The hospital is managed by the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem. There is also a church inside the hospital complex.
Arab countries, Iran and Turkey swiftly condemned the attack. The Palestinian prime minister called it "a horrific crime, genocide" and said countries backing Israel also bore responsibility. The dead included patients, women and children.

"Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza," the statement said.

In Washington, the Pentagon said it was aware of the reports about the hospital being hit but had no details.
Saudi Arabia strongly condemned the "heinous crime" committed by Israeli forces by bombing the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza leading to the death of hundreds, the kingdom's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Health authorities in Gaza say more than 3,500 people have been killed in Israel's 11-day bombardment.
Israel has flattened parts of heavily urbanized Gaza with air strikes, driven around half of its 2.3mn population from their homes and imposed a total blockade on the enclave, halting food, fuel and medical supplies.

Amid the death and destruction, the humanitarian crisis in the enclave worsened as Israeli troops and tanks massed on the border for an expected ground invasion.

Scores of trucks carrying vital supplies for Gaza headed towards the Rafah crossing in Egypt on Tuesday, the only access point to the coastal enclave outside Israeli control, but there was no clear indication that they would be able to enter.

Source: Gulf Times

Russia’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that a strike on a hospital in Gaza that killed hundreds of Palestinians was a shocking crime, adding that Israel should provide satellite images to prove that it was not involved in the attack.

Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Radio Sputnik that the attack was a shocking “dehumanizing” crime.

The strike spread throughout the West Bank governorates, today, Wednesday, to denounce the ongoing Israeli aggression for the twelfth consecutive day on the Gaza Strip, and the heinous massacre committed by the occupation forces by bombing the Baptist Hospital in the city of Gaza, in which hundreds of martyrs were killed, and the continuing Israeli aggression against our people.

The strike called for by the national and Islamic forces in the northern governorates paralyzed all aspects of life, and universities, banks, banks, and shops were closed, amid calls from popular masses to continue confrontation activities with the occupation in all regions, streets, and squares.

Public transportation also witnessed a strike on all lines, and citizen movement was slight, and factories and factories closed their doors.

General mourning in Palestine and flags flying at half-mast for the souls of the martyrs of the Baptist massacre and all the martyrs of our people

Today, Wednesday, mourning spread across the Palestinian territories for the souls of hundreds of martyrs who died in the heinous massacre committed by the occupation forces by bombing the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City yesterday evening.

Flags were flown at half-mast on official Palestinian institutions in the West Bank governorates, in implementation of the instructions of President Mahmoud Abbas, who declared general mourning for three days, and flags were flown at half-mast in mourning for the martyrs of the Baptist Hospital, and all the martyrs of our people.

The Palestinians and the world are still in shock following the Baptist Hospital massacre carried out by the Israeli occupation, yesterday, Tuesday, which led to the death of more than 500 Palestinians, in the heaviest toll of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since the seventh of this October, when the Palestinian resistance surprised it with an operation.” Al-Aqsa flood.

Renewed artillery and air bombardment on the Gaza Strip

At dawn today, Wednesday, the occupation warplanes and artillery continued raids and bombardment on several sites in the Gaza Strip.

Local sources explained that a series of raids carried out by the occupation aircraft targeted the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, west of Gaza City, the Central Governorate, the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, and the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, especially Jabalia, in light of reports of the death toll.

The occupation artillery also bombed, with dozens of shells, the eastern areas of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, in an area close to the National Baptist Hospital, where the occupation aircraft carried out a massacre earlier, leaving hundreds of martyrs and wounded.

The occupation planes bombed a bakery in the middle of the Nuseirat camp, north of Deir al-Balah, in the middle of the Gaza Strip.

The UN Security Council will convene an emergency meeting Wednesday to address the attack on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza. 

According to a statement from a UN spokesperson, the meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. (1400GMT) and will be conducted in an open debate format.

A draft resolution from Brazil calling for a "humanitarian pause" in Gaza will be voted on during the meeting.

Previously, Russia and the United Arab Emirates jointly called for an emergency session of the Security Council.

More than 500 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital on Tuesday, Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told Anadolu.

Footage on social media showed corpses scattered across the hospital grounds.

According to an Anadolu reporter, thousands of Palestinians were at the hospital when the building came under bombardment.

Source: Anadolu

US President Joe Biden will ask Israeli leaders "some tough questions” during his talks in Israel, the White House said Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters before departing for Tel Aviv, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden will meet with President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war cabinet.

Kirby said Biden wants to "get a sense from the Israelis about the situation on the ground, and more critically, their objectives, their plans, their intentions in the days and weeks ahead, and he'll be asking some tough questions".

"He'll be asking them as a friend, as a true friend of Israel, but he will be asking some questions of them," he added.

“By tough questions, I don’t mean menacing or in any way adversarial. Just hard questions that a good friend of Israel would ask about where they think they are going, what their plans are going forward.”

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the president is traveling to a region in which there is an active conflict.

"The president also believes it's an important moment to travel to the region to discuss humanitarian needs in Gaza and other crucial issues at hand," said Jean-Pierre.

The trip will be confined to Tel Aviv after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cut short his visit to Jordan and decided to return to Ramallah Tuesday night, on the eve of a planned summit with Biden, following an Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza.

The leaders of the US, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt were scheduled to take part in the summit in Amman on Wednesday.

Kirby said Biden intends to speak with both President Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the flight home.

More than 500 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital late Tuesday, Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra told Anadolu.

Footage on social media showed bodies scattered across the hospital grounds.

The airstrike came on the 11th day of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, with a growing international chorus of non-governmental groups and world leaders saying the Israeli bombing campaign on the besieged enclave -- including healthcare facilities, homes and houses of worship -- violates international law and may constitute war crimes.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Protests broke out in cities across West Asia after a deadly strike at a hospital in Gaza claimed hundreds of Palestinian lives. The Hamas-administered Gazan authorities claimed more than 500 people died in the hospital airstrike committed by the Israeli side. Israel was quick to refute the claim and said that the blast occurred due to a 'misfired' missile that was aimed at Israel. 

A report in CNN cited sources to claim that Israel has provided the US with intelligence it has gathered related to the deadly Gaza hospital explosion, to establish its purported innocence in what has been the deadliest civilian casualty toll in a single incidence during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. 

The hospital was reportedly sheltering thousands of displaced people who were evacuated from their homes, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said in a statement. 

Here's a look at protests erupting across West Asia following the mass casualty event that occurred at the Gaza hospital:

In the Jordanian capital Amman, hundreds of protesters took to the streets as a group gathered near the Israeli embassy, a move deterred by the security forces stationed there.

Jordan's state-run Petra news agency also reported the protesters' attempts to reach the embassy and subsequent instances of arson in the area.

In an announcement that coincided with raging protests in Amman, Jordan cancelled a planned summit of the leaders of Egypt and Palestine with US President Joe Biden.

Biden's West Asia itinerary now includes only a visit to Israel. 

Gaza hospital strike: Protests break out in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran

In Lebanon, hundreds of protesters took to the streets near the US embassy in the capital Beirut while attempting to break through the security barriers.

In the Iraqi capital Baghdad, hundreds of people took to the streets to chant anti-Israel slogans.

Dozens of protesters reportedly attempted to cross a bridge that leads to Green Zone, CNN reported. But security forces prevented them from crossing it, the publication reported further.

Baghdad's Green Zone houses Iraqi government offices and foreign embassies. 

In the Iranian capital Tehran, protests also took place outside the French and British embassies. Anti-Israel protests also occurred in other cities such as Esfahan and Qom.

Israel's retaliation against Gaza Strip-based Hamas following the events of Oct 7-8 — that killed over 1,400 Israeli citizens — has led to the death of nearly 3,000 Palestinian people in the thickly populated Gaza Strip.

The Arab League for Change condemned the massacre of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, in which hundreds of martyrs and wounded, including children, women and the elderly, died, and Gazan blood was shed, in addition to the hundreds of civilian martyrs in the Gaza Strip who died since last Saturday.

The statement added, "In the face of this massacre, the Gaza Strip is still under siege and collective punishment in violation of international and humanitarian law, without water, food, medicine, and electricity, which portends a real humanitarian catastrophe every minute that this siege continues."

The statement stressed the need to provide international protection for civilians, which is one of the simplest rules in international humanitarian law, which countries of the world sang about in the Ukrainian-Russian war.

The statement added: "When the victims fell on the Israeli side, we expressed our rejection of the killing of civilians and stressed this humanitarian position, which we have always repeated in every forum, and today we see the world's silence over the massacres against civilians in Gaza, and here the double standards are blatantly evident."

The statement called for an immediate cessation of the war and an end to the bloodshed, noting that "the experience of wars has proven that no people can be subjugated by killing, war and destruction. Only peace and stopping the war can bring security, and continued killing, destruction and siege will never bring security."

Countries and international organizations condemned the massacre committed by the Israeli occupation forces by bombing the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, while the Palestinian President declared three days of mourning and called on the Palestinian factions in the West Bank to escalate the confrontation with the occupation.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the number of victims of the Israeli bombing that targeted the courtyard of the Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza had risen to 500 martyrs, most of whom were women and children.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning, stressing that the occupation’s bombing of the Baptist Hospital was a crime of genocide and a humanitarian catastrophe.

The Associated Press quoted a Palestinian official as saying that President Abbas canceled his scheduled meeting with US President Joe Biden tomorrow, Wednesday, in Jordan.

Russia and the UAE also requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council tomorrow, Wednesday, after the Israeli air strike on a hospital in Gaza.

Prime Minister Al-Kandari, Justin Trudeau, described the attack as "horrific and completely unacceptable."

Trudeau said the news from Gaza is "catastrophic, it's terrible, it's unacceptable."

The World Health Organization also strongly condemned the attack on the National Arab Hospital in Gaza. Egypt condemned "in the strongest terms" the Israeli air strike, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, saying that the international community must urgently intervene to stop such violations.

A statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that Cairo “considered this deliberate bombing of civilian facilities and targets a serious violation of the provisions of international and humanitarian law, and of the most basic values of humanity. It calls on Israel to immediately stop its policies of collective punishment against the people of the Gaza Strip.”

Jordan "strongly condemned the Israeli attack on a hospital in Gaza, which led to the death of hundreds of injured and displaced civilians," according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

The Jordanian statement stressed the need to provide protection for the Palestinian people, and called for immediate concerted efforts to stop the raging war in Gaza.

At the same time, Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh condemned the attack and described it as a "horrific crime," saying that countries supporting Israel bear full responsibility "for this crime."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the attack on a hospital in Gaza is "the latest example of Israeli attacks devoid of the most basic human values."

“I call on all of humanity to take action to stop this unprecedented brutality in Gaza,” Erdogan wrote on the social media platform X.

In a statement, the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced “in the strongest terms the Israeli bombing of Al-Ahly Baptist Hospital in Gaza, which killed hundreds of civilians.”

The Qatari statement said, "The expansion of Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip to include... hospitals, schools, and population centers is considered a dangerous escalation in the course of the confrontations and portends dire consequences for the security and stability of the region."

Video clips showed ambulances transporting the dead and injured, in addition to a fire breaking out as a result of the bombing. A video clip captured the moment the hospital was bombed.

A correspondent for Al-Hurra TV confirmed that dozens of people were killed in an Israeli bombing, on Tuesday, that targeted a hospital in central Gaza City.

The correspondent said that the bombing targeted the Al-Ahli (Baptist) Hospital in the Al-Shuja’iya neighborhood in the center of Gaza City, noting that families had sought refuge in this hospital to seek shelter in it and its courtyards.

In another Israeli raid, at least six people who were displaced to a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip were killed on Tuesday, according to what the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) announced, which described this as “disgraceful.”

The agency said in a statement, “At least six people were killed this afternoon, when an UNRWA school was bombed in the Maghazi refugee camp” in the central Gaza Strip.

Source: Reuters and Al Hurra

The former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, confirmed that the killings committed by the Israeli army towards civilians in Gaza are sufficient to be investigated by the court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands.

Ocampo said, through his official account on the X platform (formerly Twitter), that “the killing of civilians in Gaza can be investigated by the International Criminal Court as war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

He added that Israel is planning to kill thousands under the pretext of eliminating the leaders of the Hamas movement, noting that history shows that leaders are replaced by new leaders, and that Israel's response to what he described as Hamas' crimes should not be a massacre in Gaza.

The former International Criminal Prosecutor said that the massacres against Palestinian civilians will exacerbate the crisis, and that achieving justice is the way to control crimes, adding that Israel should not cause global chaos.

Ocampo noted that in March 2021, the International Criminal Court opened investigations into crimes committed in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

Source: Al Jazeera

One Israeli cabinet minister was barred from a hospital visitors' entrance. Another's bodyguards were drenched with coffee thrown by a bereaved man. A third had "traitor" and "imbecile" shouted at her as she came to comfort families evacuated during the horror.

The shock Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas gunmen has rallied Israelis to one another. But there is little love shown for a government being widely accused of dropping the country's guard and engulfing it in a Gaza war that is rattling the region.

Whatever ensues, a day of judgment looms for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after a record-long career of political comebacks.

Public fury over some 1,300 Israeli fatalities has been further fueled by Netanyahu's signature self-styling as a Churchillian strategist who foresaw national-security threats.

Another backdrop is social polarization this year over his religious-nationalist coalition's judicial overhaul drive, which triggered walkouts by some military reservists and raised doubts - now borne out in blood, some argue - about combat-readiness.

"October 2023 Debacle" read a headline in top-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth, language meant to recall Israel's failure to anticipate a twin Egyptian and Syrian offensive in October 1973, which eventually led then-Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign.

That ouster put paid to the hegemony of Meir's centre-left Labour party. Amotz Asa-El, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, predicted a similar fate for Netanyahu and his long-dominant, conservative Likud party.

"It doesn't matter if there's a commission of inquiry or not, or whether or not he admits fault. All that matters is what 'middle Israelis' think - which is that this is a fiasco and that the prime minister is responsible," Asa-El told Reuters.

"He will go, and his entire establishment along with him."

An opinion poll in Maariv newspaper found that 21% of Israelis want Netanyahu to remain prime minister after the war. Sixty-six percent said "someone else" and 13% were undecided.

Were an election held today, the poll found, Likud would lose a third of its seats while the centrist National Unity party of his main rival Benny Gantz would grow by a third - setting the latter up for top office.

ISRAEL FORMS EMERGENCY WAR CABINET

But Israelis do not now want a ballot. They want action, and as the counter-offensive builds into a potential ground invasion, Gantz, a former military chief, has set aside political differences to join Netanyahu in an emergency cabinet.

Busy with the top brass and foreign emissaries, Netanyahu has limited his encounters with the public. He met relatives of some 200 hostages taken to Gaza, without TV cameras present. Amid a mounting outcry, his wife visited one family in mourning.

Netanyahu has also yet to make any statements of personal accountability - even as his top general, defense minister, national security adviser, foreign minister, finance minister and intelligence chiefs acknowledged failure to anticipate and prevent the worst attack on civilians in Israel's history.

Israel has won vocal Western support for its counter-offensive. That may fade if a Gaza ground invasion bogs down with rising Palestinian casualties and military losses.

The war could also shred two planks of Netanyahu's foreign policy: peace with Saudi Arabia, which is now on ice, and restraining Iran, which is hailing the Hamas mini-invasion as a victory for a Middle East axis sworn to Israel's destruction

Military planners say the Gaza war, whose stated goal is Hamas' annihilation, could last months. Netanyahu would enjoy a political truce for the duration, Asa-El said. Whether the prime minister's health will endure is another question. In July he was fitted with a pacemaker as judicial protests surged. He will turn 74 on Saturday.

Some commentators have suggested that rifts within Israeli society, and the degree to which they sapped national security, should be attributed more broadly than to Netanyahu alone.

"We forgot to be brothers, and got a war," Amit Segal, political analyst for the top-rated Channel 12 TV, said on Telegram. "It's not too late to repair. Stop quarrelling - now."

Noting the scorn heaped on some cabinet ministers, Asa-El said fissures seemed already to be appearing within the government coalition.

"You hear people in the street who are natural Likud supporters speaking about them with unequivocal hostility," he said. "The wrath is only going to grow, and this apparent effort by Netanyahu to evade his own responsibility only makes people angrier. He just can't bring himself to say: 'We screwed up.'"

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas decided to return to Ramallah and not participate in the quadripartite summit scheduled to be held in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Wednesday, according to what Al-Sharq reported from the Palestinian President’s office.

Minister Hussein Al-Sheikh stated on the "X" website that "President Mahmoud Abbas has decided to return to the homeland tonight and is calling for an emergency leadership meeting tonight."

Abbas was scheduled to participate in a four-way summit in the presence of US President Joe Biden, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Presidency condemns the targeting of Baptist Hospital: a crime of genocide and a humanitarian disaster

The official presidential spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina, strongly condemned the heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation by bombing the Arab National Hospital (Al-Baptist) in Gaza City, which led to the martyrdom and injury of hundreds of our people.

Abu Rudeina said that the fall of this large number of innocent civilian victims in a hospital that is supposed to have immunity, confirms that this Israeli government does not respect any international standards and recognized laws.

Abu Rudeina stressed that this crime is added to the series of crimes committed by the occupation against our people since the beginning of the recent aggression against our people, which left thousands of martyrs and wounded, the majority of whom are children and women.

All eyes are now on Xi Jinping as the Chinese president hosts state leaders, business executives and scholars from around the world for the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

In just 10 years, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi's signature vision for global development, has become one of the world's most popular public goods, bringing many developing countries chances for leapfrog development.

The gathering in Beijing offers a historic opportunity for all BRI partners to build on the initiative's remarkable achievements and progress toward common prosperity.

Why did Xi propose the BRI? What's behind the initiative's success? And what does Xi hope to achieve with it?

BOOST DEVELOPMENT FOR GLOBAL PROSPERITY

In the late 1960s, a teenager trudged into a small village hidden on China's Loess Plateau after three days of travel by train, truck and foot. He was among the "educated youth" sent to the countryside to be "re-educated" with the rustic virtues of China's farmer majority.

He was astonished by the stark challenges of life in Liangjiahe -- sleeping in flea-infested cave-houses, laboring for long hours and wrestling with hunger. He soldiered through the difficulties over seven years, leading his fellow villagers to a much better life.

That young man was Xi.

"There was no meat in our diet for months," Xi recalled decades later during a visit to the U.S. city of Seattle as Chinese president. "One thing I wished most at the time was to make it possible for the villagers to eat meat to their heart's content."

Xi Jinping visits Liangjiahe Village, Wen'anyi Township of Yanchuan County, Yan'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Feb. 13, 2015. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)

The bitter taste of poverty reinforced Xi's conviction: Development holds the master key to solving poverty problems. But how?

Xi has chosen to put China's development on wheels. "Roads first, then prosperity." Xi often cites this popular Chinese saying to elaborate on how infrastructure construction can stimulate development. In his understanding, changing a cableway or repairing a section of road, in some impoverished areas in particular, can open the door to poverty alleviation and prosperity of the masses.

A villager from Liangjiahe, Wang Xianping, recollected how Xi, who then served as a village leader, repaired the road connecting the village with the outside. "It used to be a narrow and winding path that couldn't even accommodate a wheelbarrow and was then transformed into a broad road," Wang said. The road helped the village kickstart its development.

When Xi took over the helm of China, the country had just risen to become the world's second-largest economy and faced numerous challenges. Opening up has been considered an essential engine for China's miraculous economic rise over the past four decades. Xi has reaffirmed the nation's dedication to further opening up.

The BRI has become "a new top-level design for China's reform and opening-up, and it represents opening-up at a higher level and resonates with the pursuit of high-quality development," said Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University.

While the BRI aligns with Xi's commitment to greater openness, it has played a vital role in connecting the world's most urgent development needs with what China excels in -- building roads and bridges for greater connectivity. Xi has a good understanding of the needs of developing countries. He once told the Wall Street Journal in a written interview that from 2010 to 2020, the annual shortfall in funding for Asian infrastructural development was around 800 billion U.S. dollars. A report from the Asian Development Bank finds that developing Asia needs to invest 1.7 trillion dollars a year in infrastructure until 2030 to maintain its growth momentum.

This aerial photo taken on Sept. 30, 2023 shows a high-speed electric multiple unit (EMU) train of the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway running in Purwakarta, Indonesia. (Xinhua/Xu Qin)

The BRI "leverages China's unequaled experience and competitive advantages in constructing infrastructure: rail, roads, ports, airports, power plants, telecom," said Robert Kuhn, an American expert who authored the book "How China's Leaders Think."

However, the BRI goes beyond infrastructure. It is a Chinese solution to global development issues, said a White Paper on BRI development. The current deficit in peace, development and governance poses a daunting challenge to humankind, offering an opportunity for the BRI to step in.

For the Chinese leader, just as China cannot develop in isolation from the world, the world needs China for its development.

"Xi's proposal of the BRI was primarily driven by his eagerness to share China's development experiences with the rest of the world," said Wang.

As Xi put it, pursuing the BRI "is not meant to reinvent the wheel." Instead, it aims to complement the development strategies of the countries involved by leveraging their comparative strengths. "The BRI I put forward aims to achieve win-win and shared development," Xi said.

REINVIGORATE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN CIVILIZATIONS

Villagers in Liangjiahe still remember that Xi brought two suitcases full of books when he arrived in the village in 1969.

File photo taken in 1972 shows Xi Jinping, then an "educated youth" in countryside, returning to Beijing to visit his relatives. (Xinhua)

Xi loves reading -- a fixture in his daily life. He once walked 15 kilometers to borrow a copy of Faust, a masterpiece of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

"Reading invigorates my mind, inspires me and cultivates my moral force," Xi said. Even after assuming the top leadership post, he still keeps reading despite a busy schedule and has also encouraged government officials to read.

The reading habit has given Xi a rich knowledge of the histories and cultures of both the East and the West and a source of inspiration for his thinking about global development.

On Sept. 9, 2013, while visiting the Amir Timur Museum in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, during his first Central Asia tour as Chinese president, Xi was attracted by a map of the ancient Silk Road.

Xi pointed to a location on the map, identifying it as Xi'an, his hometown and the starting point of the Silk Road. The city, formerly known as Chang'an, is a significant birthplace of Chinese civilization and the Chinese nation.

More than 2,100 years ago, Zhang Qian, a royal emissary of the Han Dynasty, made a brave journey westward from Chang'an. His adventures pushed open the door to commercial and cultural exchanges between China and Central Asia and helped blaze the Silk Road linking the East and the West.

Sharing the story with the audience at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan in 2013, Xi said, "Today, as I stand here and look back at history, I seem to hear the camel bells echoing in the mountains and see the wisps of smoke rising from the desert."

Xi Jinping delivers a speech at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, Sept. 7, 2013. Xi proposed the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt in the speech. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

Spanning thousands of miles and years, the ancient silk routes were more than routes for trade. The circulation of goods spurred the communication of cultures. Waves of caravans, travelers, scholars and artisans traveled between the East and the West as cultural envoys. The bustling pathways connected the birthplaces of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian and Chinese civilizations and the lands of major religions.

Countless relics discovered along the ancient routes, including the millennia-old "gilt bronze silkworm" displayed at China's Shaanxi History Museum and the Belitung shipwreck discovered in Indonesia, are the embodiments of the Silk Road spirit, which promoted peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit.

"History is the best teacher," Xi says, that reviving and carrying forward the Silk Road spirit and promoting cultural and people-to-people exchanges is integral to the BRI.

"We should establish a multi-tiered mechanism for cultural and people-to-people exchanges, build more cooperation platforms and open more cooperation channels," Xi said while addressing the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2017.

Xi can always combine theory, history and reality and draw inspiration from the nation's outstanding traditions, said Martin Albrow, a fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences. For Xi, civilizations do not have to clash, and no civilization reigns supreme. "Civilizations only vary from each other, just as human beings are different only in terms of skin color and the language used," he said.

"In pursuing the Belt and Road Initiative, we should ensure that when it comes to different civilizations, exchange will replace estrangement, mutual learning will replace clashes, and coexistence will replace a sense of superiority. This will boost mutual understanding, mutual respect and mutual trust among different countries," Xi stated while addressing the first Belt and Road forum.

That is why he proposed to hold the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations and put forward the Global Civilization Initiative.

"We should keep our civilizations dynamic and create conditions for other civilizations to flourish," Xi said.

Xi's vision of civilization has been shared by many.

"The BRI has revived the Silk Road spirit. By activating the spirit, different civilizations can return to a harmonious state of mutual learning. That is how civilizations should get along," said Wang Yiwei.

Former Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos said, "Chinese President Xi Jinping is a great leader who knows well about civilizations, about the essence and mission of civilizations."

INSPIRE BUILDING OF A BETTER WORLD

"Mankind, by living in the same global village in the same era where history and reality meet, has increasingly emerged as a community of shared future in which everyone has in himself a little bit of others," Xi told a rapt, packed audience at Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2013.

It was Xi's first overseas visit after he became Chinese president. During that trip, Xi first proposed building a community with a shared future for mankind. The idea has become a fundamental principle of China's foreign policy. Several months later, Xi introduced the Belt and Road Initiative, widely seen as a significant step towards realizing his vision of a better world.

Chinese President Xi Jinping talks with representatives of local staff members as he visits the Piraeus Port in Greece, Nov. 11, 2019. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Over the past decade, the world has witnessed rising anti-globalization sentiments, lackluster global economic growth, and widening wealth gaps between the rich world and the least-developed countries.

When some countries in the West are blustering about de-coupling in the name of so-called "de-risking," China, under Xi's leadership, insists on win-win cooperation and genuine multilateralism. He fully understands that "only when people all over the world live better lives can prosperity be sustained, security safeguarded and human rights solidly grounded."

Xi has made personal efforts to ensure that countries benefit from the opportunities the BRI provides. One example is the revival of Greece's Piraeus Port, which was once on the verge of bankruptcy but has now become one of the busiest shipping hubs in the world.

Starting in 2014, Xi repeatedly brought up this flagship Belt and Road project during his meetings with Greek leaders. When visiting Greece in 2019, he made a special tour of the port.

"Seeing is believing," Xi said feelingly when witnessing this port being given a new lease on life. "The BRI is not a slogan or tale, but a successful practice and brilliant reality."

Being fully aware of the mounting development needs of the Global South, the Chinese leader has always paid heavy attention to supporting the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. To that end, Xi proposed the Global Development Initiative in 2021. He called on the international community to ensure every country is included in global modernization.

In fact, Xi's emphasis on bridging the development gap in the world can be traced back to when he served as a local Chinese official.

Bathsheba Mchuza, founder and sales officer for Uyogaplus project, shows the growing of mushroom during a workshop on "Applications of Juncao Technology and its Contribution to the Achievement of Sustainable Agriculture and the Sustainable Development Goals in Tanzania" in Kinondoni District, outskirts of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on March 10, 2022. (Photo by Herman Emmanuel/Xinhua)

As governor of China's southeastern Fujian Province, Xi supported numerous anti-poverty initiatives. Among these, the Juncao program was a flagship project involving cultivating edible mushrooms that can be used to feed animals and minimize soil erosion.

Knowing that poverty remains a global challenge, Xi has consistently advocated the Juncao technology during his visits to the South Pacific, Africa and South America. "He has paid great attention to the project as he knows very well what this small plant can offer," recalled Lin Zhanxi, chief scientist for the Juncao technology.

Lin's team provided the technology and personnel training for Juncao, which has been introduced to 106 countries and included in UN development plans due to its ability to solve problems such as food shortages. Some residents have even adopted the Chinese name "Juncao" for themselves, while others call it "grass of happiness."

"Attention should be paid to some urgent projects that benefit local people." That is Xi's clear-cut demands for all BRI projects. European opinion-maker Modern Diplomacy commented in a recent opinion piece that the BRI has contributed significantly to transforming developing economies in Africa through developing infrastructure, reducing unemployment and improving trade, among other things.

"China does not aim to exploit Africa as the Western world imagines, because along with developing African infrastructure, the Belt and Road Initiative is helping Africa transform itself," it noted.

And the initiative's benefits are believed to reach even more corners of the world in the years ahead. According to a World Bank report, increased trade via Belt and Road cooperation "is expected to increase global real income by 0.7 to 2.9 percent," and BRI projects "could help lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty." Another report by global economic consultants Cebr estimated that the BRI, whose benefits "are widespread," "is likely to boost world GDP by 7.1 trillion U.S. dollars per annum by 2040."

This aerial photo taken on Oct. 5, 2023 shows China's Goldwind wind turbines in Chaiyaphum, Thailand. (Xinhua/Wang Teng)

For former Thai Deputy Prime Minister Phinij Jarusombat, the BRI "is a farsighted, world-class initiative," as it "brings peace, cooperation, development and sharing to the world. It reduces contradictions and conflicts, making people turn to seek exchanges and cooperation in the fields of culture, trade and travel."

"I have met leaders of many countries. In my eyes, Chinese President Xi Jinping is a broad-minded leader with poise and unswerving determination," he commented.

Panamanian economist Eddie Tapiero, author of the first systematic study of the BRI in Latin America, said, "The BRI inherits the spirit and essence of the ancient Silk Road, advocating peace and emphasizing seeking common development through dialogue and cooperation."

"My friends once asked me, 'What's the point of studying this?'" he said. "I told them: 'It's for a better world.'"  ■

Today, Tuesday, the President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, met in the Jordanian capital, Amman, with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

During the meeting, they discussed the latest developments on the Palestinian scene, the latest developments in the ongoing efforts to stop the escalation, spare civilians the scourge of war, and the importance of introducing medical and food relief materials and providing water and electricity as quickly as possible.

Both the Palestinian and American sides stressed the rejection of the displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

President Abbas stressed that peace and security are achieved through the implementation of the two-state solution based on international legitimacy resolutions, which includes the entire territory of the State of Palestine in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and recognition of the State of Palestine.

It is worth noting that this meeting comes within the framework of preparation for the summit meeting that will be held tomorrow between the Palestinian and American presidents.