Today, Sunday, the Israeli occupation forces arrested three citizens from the Hebron Governorate.

According to local sources, the Israeli forces arrested: Ismail Raed Abu Sheikha, Fawaz Abu Sheikha, and Moaz Abu Sheikha, from the village of Karma, south of Hebron.

The organizations of the alleged Temple and other settler organizations have continued their calls to storm the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and hold Talmudic prayers inside it today and tomorrow, that is, on the eve and the Jewish Day of Atonement. This is a matter that calls for more than concern, because targeting the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque has become a daily part of attempts to The occupation divided the mosque spatially after it succeeded in dividing it temporally in front of the eyes of the entire world, especially the Arab and Islamic worlds, which means the Blessed Al-Aqsa, just as the Holy Kaaba and the Noble Prophet’s Mosque mean, as it is the first of the two qiblahs, the second of the two mosques, and the third of the two holy mosques.

It is no longer sufficient to issue statements of denunciation and denunciation and call on the United Nations and international organizations to curb the occupation, because these organizations cannot even implement international resolutions related to Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, and the other occupied Palestinian territories, which has encouraged and encourages the occupying state and the organizations of the alleged structure to continue their attacks and work day and night for Not just dividing it spatially, but working to demolish it and erect the alleged temple in place of the honorable Dome of the Rock from which the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, ascended to the highest heavens.

In order to achieve this, the occupation continues its excavations under the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, which exposes it to the risk of collapse as a result of any earthquake that may strike the region, God forbid, and this is what the occupation and these biblical organizations are seeking, which have no other interest than harming the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and the rest of the Islamic sanctities. Christianity in the Holy City.

Hence the call of these government-backed organizations for broader storming operations into the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque today and tomorrow. They are preparing for this and are mobilizing settlers for the storming operation, after they performed Talmudic prayers yesterday in front of the Islamic Council building and in front of Bab Hatta near the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, to see the reaction of the Jerusalemites to the attack. This is in preparation for the incursions today and tomorrow.

Therefore, it is the duty of all Jerusalemites and our people inside Palestine to work unitedly in order to thwart the plans of these associations through the permanent presence in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, whether by worshipers, marabouts and marabouts, or by youth and women, because this mosque is, according to the decisions of states, special for Muslims alone. It is not for anyone but them, and what the settlers are doing is an attempt to Judaize it, despite international resolutions and global laws and norms.

The Palestinian leadership and all National Action factions must provide everything necessary for the people of Jerusalem to continue defending Al-Aqsa in the face of these extremist and racist organizations that are desecrating Al-Aqsa under the protection of the occupation forces, which are also brutalizing the people of Jerusalem as if Al-Aqsa is theirs only.

It is true that the occupation forces impose a siege on Jerusalem and prevent our people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from entering it. They also carry out deportations and arrests of Jerusalemites who make sit-in (Murabitats), and guards of the mosque to keep them away from it, and so that Zionist organizations can storm it without significant obstacles. However, this does not mean that everyone should carry out their duty towards the Blessed Al-Aqsa.

Is there anyone who will respond to protect it and prevent it from being divided and Judaized, as happened in the Noble Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron?

The issue of detaining the bodies of the martyrs represents a bleeding wound to the feelings and national and human dignity, especially to the families of the martyrs, for whom the loss of their dearest loved ones was not enough, but their lives turned into a kind of continuous suffering, and a long nightmare filled with feelings of oppression, pain, and the fires of heartbreak and anxiety that does not stop day or night, summer or summer. Winter, as long as the bodies of their loved ones are kept in the cold of the occupation’s refrigerators, and have become material for blackmail and bargaining.

All heavenly and earthly laws acknowledge the dignity of the human being, whether alive or dead. What is noteworthy is that Jewish law is the most concerned with the proper burial of the dead. You see specialized teams, such as the Zakka organization, which is a voluntary organization whose mission is to uncover victims of disasters, and after every traffic accident or The process of collecting the remains of the dead and their body parts in special bags to bury them in accordance with Jewish burial rituals. We also saw the Israeli occupation state making exceptional efforts and spending tens of millions of dollars to recover the remains of the spy Eli Cohen, or searching for those killed in Operation Sultan Yacoub, and sometimes it pays millions to bring the remains of a rabbi who died in Yemen or Morocco hundreds of years ago.

This interest in the dignity of the dead on the part of the State of Israel is limited to the Jewish dead, while the bodies of the Palestinian martyrs are subject to all kinds of forced disappearance and random burial in the cemeteries of numbers. Sometimes the burial is near the streams of torrents and the valleys that sweep away those graves, including them, in addition to the long-term detention of the bodies in refrigerators, all with the aim of blackmailing the Palestinians, whether through the release of the bodies as part of security or political deals, or to deter the Palestinian public, and create the conviction that... He thinks of resistance or carries out any operation that will cause permanent suffering to his family. The occupation does not content itself with field executions of those who carried out the operations, but rather punishes the families by demolishing homes, withdrawing permits or identity cards, and threatening deportation. Then, it resorts to the most psychologically harmful measure, which is detaining the bodies.

What confirms the importance of the issue is that President Mahmoud Abbas referred to it during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly meeting, asking a denouncing question about the reason and usefulness of the bodies of the martyrs. Two days before the speech, the “Masarat” Center hosted a dialogue symposium on a research paper prepared by the two young researchers, Ghazal Al-Natour and Moatasem Zaidan, and they discussed it in the presence of representatives of the martyrs’ families and the Al-Quds Center for Legal Aid, which made distinguished legal, political and public efforts during the past years to release the bodies of the detained martyrs and the bodies of the graves of figures. The Center's efforts succeeded in releasing some bodies after they had been detained for more than 30 years. Its efforts were met with actual and artificial Israeli obstacles and attempts to mislead and evade responsibility for preserving the bodies of martyrs, especially those who had been detained for decades. The aforementioned research paper talks about the detention of the bodies of more than 140 martyrs during the past seven years, in addition to the preservation of the bodies of more than 256 martyrs in the number cemeteries. Here it must be noted that these numbers are moving on a daily basis, and often in an upward direction, as the occupying state continues its policy of brutal repression, assassinations, and invasions within the policy known as attempts to resolve the conflict by military force.

One of the things that shocked the participants in the symposium was what Mrs. Azhar, the mother of the martyr Abdul Hamid Abu Srour, who was martyred in 2016, and she is the daughter of the martyr Abdul Hamid Abu Srour (Abu al-Ghadab), who was martyred in 1981, said that the occupation authorities deliberately buried her son in a number cemetery called ( Amiad) near Safed. The martyr and his family were residents of Bethlehem, and he was martyred in Jerusalem. What motivates him to be buried in Safed other than the desire to oppress his family and torture them for a lifetime, knowing that this information was only available after painstaking legal reviews, diligent efforts, and the intervention of the “Adalah” Center for the Rights of the Palestinian Arab Minority in... Inside in order to know the fate of the martyr.

The paper reveals a set of political and psychological backgrounds for the policy of detaining bodies or “collecting bodies,” including bargaining and blackmail, being a tool for controlling and controlling the Palestinian body and consciousness, a type of collective punishment, concealing the circumstances of the execution of martyrs after their capture, medical neglect of prisoners, and the possibility of using the bodies of prisoners as cases. Study, as stated in a statement by Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh. This is in addition to the spread of reports about stealing the organs of Palestinian martyrs or conducting experiments on them, as stated in the testimonies of Israeli doctor Meira Weiss, and in a report by CNN. that. The American.

The families of the martyrs whose bodies are kept in refrigerators or cemeteries have dozens of painful and sad stories, and specialized human rights institutions have a lot to say in this regard. What is important is that the official and popular Palestinian effort on this issue does not remain scattered and fragmented, and that the work to free the bodies not be limited to their families. The issue concerns every Palestinian, male and female, wherever they are. Rather, it concerns every individual in whose veins human dignity pulsates.

What is required is to transform this issue into a top national priority, and for it to occupy the position it deserves at the forefront of the concerns of the PLO, the Authority, and all civil and official institutions, and a major issue for all Palestinian forces, civil society organizations, and Palestine advocacy committees throughout the world. Work must be done to build a broad national coalition to continue putting pressure on the occupation government and its supporters in order to resolve this issue and not link it to any conditions or political settlements. It is necessary to arm our communities with all the information and data on this sensitive issue through which Israel’s crimes can be exposed and support and advocacy for the legitimate struggle of our people can be attracted, and that interest in this issue should not remain limited to families and specialized human rights institutions.

President Abu Mazen’s speech at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly was not a traditional speech based on constructive or philosophical expressions, and it is not a showy speech because it is devoid of linguistic and political showmanship. The President’s speech was focused and comprehensive through which he was able to present the Palestinian concern and suffering due to the Zionist occupation. Its extremist settlement and the daily crimes committed by this occupation are before the eyes of the entire world. The President focused on all the rights approved and recognized by international law, starting with the international protection of our people, passing through the right of return and compensation, the right to recognize us as a state under occupation, and ending with the rights of self-determination, holding the occupation responsible for all crimes committed against the Palestinian people and their sanctities, and trying to implement the occupation’s plan to change the historical situation. He also held the world fully responsible for his failure to intervene justly to end this long occupation, and wondered why international standards differed when dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and thus dealing with Israel as an occupation, settlement and apartheid state. It is clearly defined and has many evidences and proofs. The world asked: Why is the Israeli occupation state treated as a state above the law? Why is Israel not yet subject to any international accountability or responsibility? .

Al-Raisi began his speech with an important message addressed to several parties, the most important of which are Israel and the United States of America. He said, “The most important person is who thinks that peace can be achieved without the Palestinians obtaining their full rights.” Al-Raisi did not want to allude more than that to the issue of “reverse peace” that Netanyahu and the United States are trying to achieve. The United States can achieve it through normalization agreements with many Arab countries. Therefore, the new Middle East whose map is drawn by the United States and Israel will not force the Palestinians to give up their identity and political rights, the first of which is their right to an independent, fully sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital. Therefore, all steps to make an imaginary peace cannot be achieved. To force the Palestinians to accept joining the normalization train and accept economic solutions within the framework of the Arab-Israeli peace agreements without the Palestinians achieving complete independence or obtaining a fully sovereign state geographically contiguous with the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza. This is also a clear message addressed to the (Joe Biden) administration, which is trying to conclude normalization agreements with Saudi Arabia by offering some concessions, as they call them, to the Palestinians without putting forward real peace initiatives based on the principle of the two-state solution, so that it is unable to take measures through which it can restrain the government. The extremism led by Netanyahu by stopping the plan to resolve the conflict through settlement and annexation as a plan that does not leave the Palestinians any political rights that they can speak about in the future.

The President alerted the world to the danger of turning the conflict into a religious one by committing more crimes against Palestinian civilians and desecrating Islamic and Christian sanctities. He called on the world and international community organizations, led by the United Nations, to provide protection for the Palestinian people who suffer from the scourge of occupation and face alone all the crimes of racial discrimination and deprivation from performing their religious rituals in His sanctities freely and without provocation, and here he called on the international community to assume its responsibilities in preserving the historical situation in Jerusalem, especially the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, and called on the United Nations to take deterrent measures against the occupying state until it responds to the resolutions of international legitimacy, and strongly criticized the United Nations’ inability to Implement even one resolution out of a thousand issued regarding the conflict with the Israeli occupation, all of which support Palestinian rights and demand an end to this occupation and grant the Palestinians the rights of self-determination.

The International Peace Conference was one of the President’s most important directions to the United Nations and the General Assembly, as it is the safest path to accelerating the achievement of international justice towards the rights of our people, provided that all countries concerned with achieving peace in the Middle East participate in it. The President called on Mr. (Antonio Guterres), Secretary-General of the United Nations General Assembly The United Nations should make urgent arrangements to hold this conference as a last opportunity to save the international solution. The President also called on the United Nations General Assembly and the member states to grant Palestine full membership in the United Nations. He wondered why some countries that recognize Israel do not recognize Palestine as a state. The President was astonished at the world’s insistence on dealing with double standards. The standards are especially related to the Palestinian issue and the Israeli occupation. The world also asked why Israel is not held accountable for the crimes it commits against the Palestinians and the occupying state is treated as a state above the law. The President reiterated that Britain and America are held responsible for all those crimes that were committed in the past and are still being committed because of their role in making (the Balfour Declaration) and implementing it on the ground. He called on them to confess, apologize, make amends, and provide compensation in accordance with international law to the Palestinian people.

The President sent a clear message to the Israeli people and their government that their occupation of the Palestinian land will not last, regardless of their racist ambitions, policies, and plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause through the great Jewish project in a purely Hebrew Jewish state without the Palestinians enjoying any political rights. The President said it clearly, “The Palestinian people will remain on their land, which they have inhabited for thousands of years, generation after generation, and will not leave.” This means that all the criminal occupation measures will not undermine the steadfastness of our people on their land, and will not discourage them from resisting the occupation, especially resisting annexation and settlement projects, which are destined to fail and will not remain. Any of their settlements that they are trying to expand at the expense of the Palestinian land and cultivate it with a million settlers in the coming years because we, as Palestinians, are the owners of the land and we will resist this settlement with everything we have. President Abu Mazen sent a final and strong message to the international community with all its components that he must bear full responsibility for this hateful occupation and speed up enabling the Palestinians to Their legitimate rights and the implementation of all international and legitimate resolutions, the implementation of which will remain an international moral, ethical and legal right that falls on the responsibility of this organization to ensure security and stability in the Middle East region.
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With a forged map, in a pivotal moment, Netanyahu revealed the only honest thing he seeks: the removal and erasure of the Palestinians. After that, his speech was no longer important. The picture spoke clearly about Zionist politics, strategy, and doctrine. To make the matter clear to those who did not watch Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations on television. During his deceptive speech, he uploaded two maps of the Middle East completely devoid of the Palestinian presence: the first for the year 1948, in which he referred to historical Palestine as “Israel,” shading it completely in blue, and the second is the same map of the future new Middle East, with the color of the Arab countries surrounding Palestine changing to green color . This is to show (according to his claim) how Israel was alone in the Arab world in 1948, and how it is today surrounded by friends after the path of normalization. This falsification of history and the forced disappearance of the Palestinian people occurred on the platform of the United Nations, which is primarily responsible legally and historically for international legitimacy and for the decisions upon which the Palestinians rely to demand their rights. But it didn't matter.. The hall was almost empty, as if he was talking to himself and the group of clowns who were applauding him.

How can the world listen to a speech that falsely claims peace in the Middle East and raises a map of ethnic cleansing at the same moment??

In general, Netanyahu is always credited with being good at acting dramatically on the UN stage, waving red pens. However, in this session, he was truly himself and without acting.

President Abbas had anticipated Netanyahu's theatrical presentation with a confident, calm, concise, clear, sober and smooth speech. He began with a strong, clear sentence that was closest to a future warning message, saying: "The most important person is who believes that there is peace... without the Palestinians obtaining their legitimate rights." This sentence responded pre-emptively to Netanyahu's forged speech and map, or perhaps it provoked him in a way that made him reveal his true convictions.

President Abbas's speech was comprehensive and convincing because it was simply based on a true story, which is the story of the people struggling to end the occupation despite the changes around them and the deliberate ignoring of their ongoing suffering and attempts to overcome it. The courage of tirelessly repeating Palestinian demands from the international community is credited to President Abbas... because we Unfortunately, we face the challenge of keeping the Palestinian issue alive on the international community’s priority list, as if it is not enough for us to just fight the occupation! Perhaps one of the most important things mentioned in President Abu Mazen’s speech is his continued demand for Palestine’s right to full membership in the United Nations and recognition of the Palestinian state for those who have not yet done so. I believe that it is a demand that must be urgently repeated and strive diligently for to happen because it refutes the Zionist “alternative” theory that centers on a “land without people,” which Netanyahu later brazenly presented in his forged map. Abbas also challenged the international community by demanding a peace conference. This is something that I believe depends on the interests of international actors, the extent of their willingness to participate, and their ability to build effective political positions...but at the same time, with the rapid transformations that the global system is going through today towards multipolarity, the rise of middle powers, and the seriousness in expanding geopolitical and economic blocs such as BRICS and... 77In addition to China, it would reshape the global economy and the global political system, and therefore the outlook for holding the international conference must change.. and not all Western actors necessarily attend!!

It is noteworthy that a good portion of the Palestinian political and cultural elite, when talking about Oslo and the issue of peace with Israel, repeated the saying, “If Rabin had not been killed,” the situation would have been different, peace would have been achieved, and the Palestinians would have achieved what they wanted “without more or less.”

This "saying" could have passed quietly, if its saying had been limited to the period of "great" grief, after the killing of Rabin, but it has continued until now, twenty-eight years after that event, and has even increased its "momentum." Which means that he went beyond “expressing feelings” about the man’s killing, to political use of them.

Certainly, it is not necessary that every Palestinian who repeated this statement understands its dimensions and consequences. It is possible that some may have said it “spontaneously” as a result of fear of what might result from the “peace” process that had great momentum at the time, but many of those who continued to do so went beyond saying what they thought was the “true” word for that man (Rabin). They went beyond expressing their state of disappointment, which caused them a “setback” in the peace process as a result of his killing, to employing him to defend their point of view.

Who is Rabin?
Rabin was born in Jerusalem in 1922 to a Ukrainian father and a Belarusian mother. He participated in the 1948 “war” with the Zionist Haganah, which committed many massacres against the Palestinians under his direct leadership, the most important of which was the one that occurred in the city of Lod, where hundreds were killed and the rest of the population was displaced. Rabin was one of the most important planners and executors of the deportation of Palestinians during the Nakba.

In 1967, General Yitzhak Rabin was Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, who launched an attack on three Arab countries and occupied large parts of their lands. In that war, he ordered the three villages of “Latrun” (Emwas, Yalo, and Beit Nuba) to be completely demolished, and their residents were displaced. Israel built the “Canada” Park on its ruins, with funding from the Jewish “community” there.

After that, Rabin became Israel's ambassador to the United States, then Minister of Defense, and Prime Minister twice. During the first Palestinian Intifada, Rabin was the proponent of the “policy” of breaking bones, which the Israeli army practiced on Palestinian youth who rejected the occupation.

In recognition of Rabin's "exploits" by the Zionist establishment and the "free" world, he was awarded numerous awards, three honorary doctorates from Israeli universities, another honorary doctorate from the University of Miami, and the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award, culminating in his third Nobel Peace Prize. "With Peres and Arafat (two - one) in recognition of his "thanks" in achieving the Oslo Accords.
Rabin and Oslo

It is not difficult for anyone who watched the signing ceremony of the Oslo Accords in the White House courtyard to infer from Rabin’s body language his position on the peace process, on the Palestinians, and on Arafat, as he appeared hesitant and “disgusted” while shaking hands with the latter. Rabin remained fixed in his place, slow and “burdened” with all the conflicts of the past, while Arafat took the initiative to advance towards him, extending his hand, and seemed happy, comfortable, and “overcome” with all the heavy burdens of the past. The moment seemed to be an Israeli continuation and a sharp Palestinian turn.

In fact, Rabin did not speak even once about the rights of the Palestinians, nor about a Palestinian “state.” Rather, he spoke about his “willingness” to make great “sacrifices” for peace, none of which he explained one day, and when he “went away.” In clarifying his position, he said that he would “give” the Palestinians “more than an autonomy and less than a state,” and left it to thinkers, politicians, and “astrologers” to imagine what that means.

As for the Oslo Accords, which Rabin approved, it did not talk at all about Palestinian national rights, nor about a Palestinian state, or the “two-state solution.” Rather, it stipulated that the goal of the negotiations was to establish a transitional Palestinian self-governmental authority, leading to a permanent settlement, based on two Security Council resolutions. 242 and 338, which did not talk about a Palestinian state, and there was disagreement about what it mentioned about the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the first moment.

Rabin was clear, whether in his statements about Oslo, or in his actions, or in what was stipulated in the agreements, that he would not agree to the Palestinians obtaining any of their national rights, so the issue of settlement, Jerusalem, and refugees was postponed to the “final” negotiations, and gradually the “rights” were transferred "to "privileges" in practice.

Palestinian reaction
After all that, how did the Palestinians, or many of them, feel that Rabin was serious about reaching a satisfactory solution for them? And they did not leave room for the mind to assume the opposite, that is, that Rabin had worked to get the Palestinians to where Israel wanted them to be. ..And how can this “sad” and “frustrating” position regarding Rabin’s killing be explained?

The main reason for this, in our opinion, is that the Palestinians went too far in trusting Oslo, and they had a strange reassurance - an illusion - that made them forget not only the loopholes, question marks, and sometimes contradictory “clarity” in the texts, but also, in a way, the occupation itself, the Zionist movement and its history. And perhaps imperialism too.

The leadership and a large proportion of the Palestinian political elite understood, and even wanted to understand, that the Rabin government’s recognition of it meant recognition of rights, or in the worst case, Palestinian national rights, which work would be done to develop. Although she did this during Rabin's life, she held on to him even more in his death.

Like the Oslo Accords for the Palestinians, “the peace of the brave” (I do not think, and I do not know if the Israelis used this expression), and since it is so, the killing of one of the two sides of the equation of the brave, Rabin, requires the other side to mourn him and consider himself a target. Also, this is what was established by the “assassination” of Arafat, which “led us” to believe that whoever killed Rabin is the same one who killed Arafat, and whoever doubts Rabin’s credibility towards peace is also doubting us. He questions our intelligence, wisdom, orientations, patriotism, and credibility?!

If this were not the case, the use of the expression “peace of the brave” would most likely have extremely negative effects on the weaker party in the equation; It is an embellishment and legislation for concessions, and it blocks any possibility of revival, since it deprives the weaker party of its right to feel unfair, and “forces” it to feel happy while it is at the height of its feeling of injustice.

So, in order to build on what is required, and since there is no harm in using Aristotle’s logic this time, “moderate” Israel is, like us, a victim of “extremist” Israel, and in order to miss the opportunity for “extremist” Israel, we must adhere to the relationship with “moderate” Israel. " which is represented by Rabin's approach, we miss the opportunity for the extremists, and we proceed with Bauslo, which is the "fruit" of the efforts and cooperation of the "moderates" on both sides.

In order to make matters more clear, and to elaborate on this “pronunciation,” the conflict in the region has become limited to the “moderates” of the Israelis, Palestinians, and Arabs on the one hand, and between the “extremists” of the Israelis, Palestinians, and Arabs on the other side. From here too, normalization with Israel, Palestinian and Arab, has become an “urgent” and extremely important matter, in order to unite the ranks of “moderates” in the face of “extremism.”

Here, the American role was more clear, as Rabin’s funeral was an American arrangement rather than an Israeli one, and this is according to the testimony of Sheikh Hamad Al Thani, the Qatari Prime Minister at the time, who stated that the United States insisted “on us” that it be necessary to attend Rabin’s funeral “at the highest level.” The United States wanted the funeral to be not only a place for leaders to shed tears over Rabin, deeply mourn his loss, and a political and “moral test” for these leaders, but also to serve as an announcement of frank, public, and emotional normalization between Arabs and Israel.

The continued Palestinian grief over Rabin, the likes of which is not found in Israel itself, and the desire to turn it into a legendary grief that must be constantly commemorated sends Palestinian messages in different directions. It is a message to America that we do not hate Israel, and it is also a message to the Israelis themselves.

The “designers” of Oslo wanted it to be not only a turning point in the political relationship of Palestinians and Arabs with Israel, but also a turning point in their feelings towards it. Perhaps in this context comes the high-pitched Israeli, and sometimes "elite" Palestinian, anger towards Abu Mazen's statements, from which one cannot discern a position that is inconsistent with the "new" feelings that Oslo is supposed to have formed towards the Israelis.

Grieving over Rabin, and perhaps more accurately “compassion” for him, and constantly recalling his “exploits,” is a message of reassurance from the Palestinian leadership elite to the Israelis, that we are still loyal to the “Oslois” relationship with them. It is a message to all Palestinians that the leadership is not to blame for the failure of Oslo. The problem is not with us, nor even with the moderate Israelis. In short, it is a matter of bad luck embodied in the killing of Rabin.

finally
We do not deny the role of the individual in history, nor do we deny the possibility of the individual transforming from one state to another, but that has its objective conditions, and has its indicators, none of which I found, despite trying, that apply to Rabin's case. Until the last moment of his life, he did not show any “understanding” of Palestinian national rights, and he did not express, in word or deed, anything that would indicate that he was changing towards peace based on even the minimum level of justice.

The signing of Oslo by Rabin means nothing more than his awareness - and the awareness of his opponents as well - that it is a step that is completely consistent with the interests of Israel and Zionism. Otherwise, how do we explain that the one who opposed Oslo while he was in the opposition (Netanyahu) has continued with it while he is in power?
For the umpteenth time, we are faced with a Zionist project represented by the State of Israel, which has its own goals and conditions for its progress and retreat, which are based primarily on the balance of power with the other party, which we must not forget is us.

Joe Biden is expected to call for the UN Security Council to be expanded to counter Russia and China as world leaders gather in New York. US president wants to add countries including Germany and Japan to dilute influence of China and Russia

As reported by The Telegraph, US president will ask the 193 UN member nations to “take a look at the architecture of the Security Council,” White House National Security spokesman John Kirby told The Telegraph ahead of the General Assembly.

Biden is due to speak on Tuesday, with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, also expected to address the meeting in person for the first time since the war began.

The Telegraph understands Biden is pushing for “five or six” new permanent members, including India, Brazil, Germany and Japan. and South Africa have also been mentioned as possible members representing Latin America and Africa. It is not clear if they would have veto powers.

Currently, the UN Security Council has five permanent members: China, Russia, the US, UK and France. It also has 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.

Speaking to The Telegraph at the White House, Kirby said: “I think President Biden, and you’ll hear him talk about this a little bit more next week, we have been clear that we believe that it is time to take a look at the architecture of the Security Council.

“We believe it should be more inclusive and more comprehensive.”

Asked if that meant changing the veto rules or the membership structure, Kirby said: “We just think it’s time to have a discussion about the architecture in the organization. I think President Biden, the United States, would support more members.”

The Security Council has struggled to reach agreement in recent years over key issues like North Korea and Syria. In May 2022, they failed to adopt a resolution that would have strengthened sanctions on Pyongyang over ballistic missile launches. Despite 13 signatories, China and Russia called the measure “counterproductive and inhumane”.

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader has met with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to discuss a possible arms deal.

Reform of the Security Council would require an amendment to the UN Charter. This could be vetoed by China and Russia, whose powers to block resolutions and sanctions may be diminished by reform.

US and UN officials have told US media that Biden’s plans may offer seats to new permanent members without the power to veto.

Britain’s ambassador to the UN backs reform of the Security Council.

Today, Sunday, dozens of Israeli settlers stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, under heavy protection from the Israeli occupation police.

Local sources reported that the occupation forces tightened their military measures in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa, and obstructed the entry of worshipers and stationed people, to secure the entry of settlers in large numbers, on the anniversary of the Jewish “Day of Atonement.”

The alleged union of "temple organizations" had called for a central storming of Al-Aqsa today and tomorrow, on the eve of Yom Kippur.

Israeli Occupation forces stormed the Birzeit University campus at dawn on Sunday.

Local sources said that the occupation forces, supported and reinforced by more than ten military vehicles, stormed the campus of Birzeit University at dawn today.

The sources pointed out that the Israeli occupation forces stayed at the university for approximately 40 minutes before withdrawing.

The occupation forces arrested the President of the Student Council (Abdul Majeed Hassan), the Coordinator of the Islamic Bloc (Amr Khalil), the Secretary of the Specializations Committee (Abdullah Najm), the Secretary of the Sports Committee (Ahmed Aweidat), a member of the Student Council Conference (Yahya Farah), and a former Student Council member (Mahmoud Nakhla). ) And the student Hassan Alwan from inside the university campus. 

Saudi Arabia has said that any solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would need to include an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.

The statement was made by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Furhan Al-Saud at the UN General Assembly on Saturday night. He spoke the day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his address, during which he touted the idea of a "new Middle East" with normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Netanyahu hinted at accepting concessions to Palestinians. In interview that the prime minister gave in America, he hinted at the possibility of his coalition considering concessions to the Palestinians as part of their efforts to secure such a peace agreement.

The young Palestinian, Abdul Rahman Suleiman Abu Daghash (32 years old), was shot in the head with live bullets at dawn today, Sunday, during the ongoing aggression against Nour Shams camp, east of Tulkarm. He was subsequently transferred to the Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in Tulkarm, where doctors declared him dead as a result of his injury.

Abu Daghash is the second Palestinian killed in the ongoing occupation aggression against Nour Shams camp, where another young Palestinian  Aseed Jabaawi (21 years old) was killed earlier today as a result of being shot in the head with live bullets.

The occupation forces stormed the camp in large numbers, accompanied by military bulldozers, amid heavy gunfire, and began bulldozing the main street and infrastructure in the camp, while occupation snipers mounted the roofs of citizens’ homes.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that the occupation forces obstructed the entry of its crews into the camp to treat the injured.

Eyewitnesses reported that two bulldozers bulldozed a number of the camp's streets and destroyed the main eastern entrance to the city of Tulkarm.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Friday that Bangladesh will continue efforts to fight for the rights of Palestinians as she touched on the anniversary of the Nakba.

"It is worrying that the rights of the Palestinians are not fulfilled," said Hasina, referring to the 75th commemoration of the Nakba, when Israel declared its independence in occupied Palestinian lands in 1948 and forced Palestinians to migrate.

Her remarks came in an address to the 78th UN General Assembly where she said Bangladesh is willing to ensure global peace and security by participating in UN peacekeeping operations.

US President Joe Biden received a dose of the updated Covid-19 vaccine in addition to the annual influenza vaccine, according to what his doctor said.

Biden's personal physician, Kevin O'Connor, said that the US President hopes that others will follow his example.

Last week, American health officials gave their approval to Pfizer and Moderna to produce updated versions of anti-Covid vaccines that are able to better adapt to the virus variants currently spreading.

Officials also recommended that all Americans 60 years of age or older receive the respiratory syncytial virus (RCV) vaccine.

The floods caused by Hurricane Daniel two weeks ago in Libya left more than 3,800 dead, according to a new toll published on Saturday evening by the authorities of eastern Libya.

The floods that swept through the city of Derna in eastern Libya killed at least 3,845 people, according to a new, non-final toll, “this afternoon,” according to what Muhammad al-Jarh, spokesman for the committee supervising relief operations formed by the government of eastern Libya, announced.

He added that this toll, which he said only includes bodies buried and registered with the Ministry of Health, "is likely to rise every day."

He added that the bodies that residents hurriedly buried in the first days after the disaster were not counted in this toll.

According to him, the authorities are working to count the victims buried without knowing their identities, as well as the missing, whose number has risen to more than 10,000, according to estimates by the authorities and international humanitarian organizations.

He called on residents to report missing persons in two offices established by the Public Prosecutor in Derna.
Meanwhile, search operations continue to find bodies under the rubble or in the sea. At least nine foreign teams are still participating in these operations.

Hurricane Daniel particularly struck the city of Derna, which has a population of 100,000 people and overlooks the Mediterranean Sea, causing two dams to collapse and causing floods that swept away everything in its path.

The floods caused the displacement of more than 43,000 people, according to the latest statistics of the International Organization for Migration.

On Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, from the United Nations podium, accused Western countries of waging "direct combat" against Russia in Ukraine.

Lavrov said, "You can call it whatever you want, but they are fighting us, fighting us directly. We call it a hybrid war, but that does not change the reality," referring to financial aid, weapons, and "mercenaries" coming from Western countries.

On Saturday evening, protests against the Netanyahu government and the plan to weaken the judiciary were renewed in Tel Aviv and dozens of towns and major intersections.

Tens of thousands demonstrated on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv, where the central demonstration was on Kaplan Street, as well as in dozens of towns and major intersections, against the Netanyahu government and the plan to weaken the judiciary.

It is scheduled to follow the central demonstration in Kaplan, a march towards the home of the Speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, in the city.

Protest organizers announced that the central demonstration was called “There is no forgiveness for dictatorship,” in reference to the so-called Day of Atonement, which falls on Sunday and Monday.

Thousands demonstrated in many towns, including Haifa, Jerusalem, Netanya, Kfar Saba, Ramat Hasharon, Hadera, Rehovot, and the Karkur Junction.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Saturday that he met during a stop in Ireland with the Sudanese army commander, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, at a time when Kiev seeks to contain Russian influence in Africa.

 Zelensky wrote on X : “I am grateful to Sudan for its constant support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,”

Zelensky explained that he discussed with Al-Burhan "common challenges at the security level, especially the activities of illegal armed groups funded by Russia."

Al-Burhan called for supporting Kiev's initiatives aimed at continuing to export grains through the Black Sea, despite the Russian blockade.

He continued, "We also discussed the possibility of finding common spaces to intensify cooperation between Ukraine and African countries."

Ukraine is striving to strengthen its partnership with the countries of the African continent, hoping to contain the growing Russian influence.

Ethiopia called on the United Nations on Saturday to accelerate the implementation of the peace agreement in Tigray, including the disarmament of former rebels.

In November last year, the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front reached an agreement in Pretoria that put an end to a brutal war that has been going on for two years.

Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen said in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly, "The implementation of the agreement continues to make significant progress despite some delays in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process."

"There is a need to accelerate this process and ensure its successful completion," he added.
The Tigray People's Liberation Front, which previously ruled Ethiopia, agreed to disarm under the Pretoria Agreement with military advances made by government forces.

An African Union monitoring mission confirmed in January that the aforementioned front had begun handing over its heavy weapons, while in July the Tigray authorities reported the demobilization of more than 50,000 fighters, but the level of implementation of the agreement is still unclear.

Demeke said Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government, which has faced intense criticism including from the United States over alleged human rights violations, remains "committed to promoting peace and stability across the country."

He added that the agreement brokered by the African Union in South Africa "is a practical embodiment of African solutions to African problems."

What further complicates the effort is that forces from the neighboring Amhara region still control western Tigray in an area that could potentially constitute a fuse for an explosion.

The Pretoria agreement calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces, but residents say there is still a presence of forces from neighboring Eritrea, which has been accused of committing some of the worst abuses after the intervention against the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

The Minister of Endowments and Religious Affairs, Sheikh Hatem Al-Bakri, said that the proceeds of donations collected by the “Palestine with You” campaign to relief those affected by the hurricane in Libya and the earthquake in Morocco have amounted to more than one million shekels, since its launch last Sunday.

Sheikh Al-Bakri said that the committee formed to follow up on the “Palestine with You” campaign in the Ministry of Endowments will hold a meeting tomorrow, Sunday, to take a decision to extend it for another week, or stop it.

Regarding how to deliver aid, he explained that there is coordination with the ambassadors of the State of Palestine to Morocco and Libya to deliver aid, noting that the Moroccan government has allocated bank accounts to assist and provide relief to the afflicted.

Al-Bakri stressed that the Ministry of Endowments launched this campaign, under the guidance of President Mahmoud Abbas, to stand by our brothers in Libya and Morocco in facing the difficult conditions resulting from natural disasters.

Last Sunday, the Minister of Endowments announced the launch of a relief campaign for those affected by the hurricane in Libya and the earthquake in Morocco, by collecting donations in mosques after Friday prayers, or by donating to the account numbers of the Palestinian Zakat Fund.

Israel congratulated Riyadh on Saturday on the occasion of Saudi National Day, at a time when talks on the possibility of normalizing relations between the two countries appear to be accelerating.

It was stated on the account of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the “X” website (formerly Twitter) in Arabic, “We extend our sincere congratulations and blessings to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, its king, government and people, on the occasion of the 93rd National Day. May it bring you goodness and blessings in the light of security, safety and prosperity, with our wishes for an atmosphere of peace and cooperation to prevail.” And good neighborhood.”

A Foreign Ministry spokesman did not answer Agence France-Presse’s question about whether this was the first time that Israel had congratulated Riyadh on this occasion.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said from the United Nations podium on Friday that Israel and Saudi Arabia are on the “threshold” of establishing a “historic peace,” recalling the normalization of relations with three Arab countries in 2020.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in a recent interview with the American Fox News network in Saudi Arabia, “We are getting closer and closer every day” to normalizing relations with Israel.

Israel and Saudi Arabia do not establish diplomatic relations despite the increase in contacts since 2020 with the normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan within the framework of the so-called “Abraham Accords.”

Two young men were injured this Saturday evening during confrontations with the Israeli occupation forces, in the village of Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqilya.

Local sources reported that two young men were injured by rubber-coated metal bullets in their feet during the confrontations that broke out after the occupation forces stormed the village.

Thirteen people were killed and 20 others were injured in central Somalia on Saturday after a suicide bomber deliberately detonated a truck full of explosives near a checkpoint in the city of Beledweyne, police announced.

Local police official Ahmed Aden announced in a statement to Agence France-Presse that “the bodies of 13 people, most of them civilians who live close to” the site, were found.

He reported that "about 20 wounded people were transferred to hospitals," and added, "We believe that the number of casualties is likely to rise."

The attack, which damaged nearby buildings and led to many being trapped under the rubble, comes after the weak Somali government acknowledged that it had suffered “several major setbacks” in its campaign against Al-Shabaab Islamic movement fighters.

The movement's fighters have been waging an insurgency for more than 15 years to overthrow the weak, internationally-backed government in Mogadishu.

The African Union force, which deployed in Somalia in 2007 with a six-month mandate, is still present in the country, and the government is currently seeking to postpone the process of reducing the number of foreign forces for three months.

UN resolutions call for the withdrawal of the African Union force from Somalia by the end of next year, and for the transfer of security responsibilities to the country's army and police.

In August last year, Somali forces launched a large-scale attack against the Al-Shabaab movement affiliated with Al-Qaeda, and were supported in their campaign by clan militias in an operation supported by the African Union force and supported by the United States with air strikes.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office last May and pledged to wage an “all-out war” against the Al-Shabaab movement, which was defeated from Mogadishu in 2011 but still controls vast areas of the country.

The president, who recently conducted inspection visits to the front line, said in August that the government would eliminate terrorists by the end of the year.

However, the Somali National Security Advisor requested, in a letter he addressed to the United Nations, to postpone the process of withdrawing three thousand members of the African Union force scheduled for the end of September.

The letter, seen by Agence France-Presse, said that the government “was able to re-liberate cities, towns and basic supply routes,” but its operation had suffered “several major setbacks” since late August.

Ethiopia announced on Saturday that it had begun a second round of negotiations with Egypt and Sudan regarding the controversial Renaissance Dam that Addis Ababa built on the Nile River, and it remains a source of tension between the three countries.

On September 10, Ethiopia announced the completion of filling the Renaissance Dam, which sparked immediate condemnation from Cairo, which condemned the illegality of this step.

Egypt and Sudan consider the dam, which cost $4.2 billion, a threat to their water supplies. They have repeatedly asked Addis Ababa to stop filling it until an agreement is reached on how to operate it.

Negotiations between the three countries resumed on August 27 after stopping since April 2021.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed agreed in July to finalize the agreement within four months.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on the X website on Saturday that “the second round of tripartite negotiations between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan regarding (...) the annual operation of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam began today, September 23, 2023, in Addis Ababa.”

She added, "Ethiopia is committed to finding a negotiated and amicable solution within the ongoing tripartite process."
The dam has been at the center of a regional dispute since Ethiopia began construction work in 2011.
Egypt considers the dam an existential threat because it depends on the Nile River to secure 97% of its water needs.

The dam is at the heart of Ethiopia's development plans, and in February 2022, Addis Ababa announced that it had begun generating electricity for the first time.

The large hydroelectric dam, which is 1.8 kilometers long and 145 meters high, is expected to produce more than 5,000 megawatts when operating at full capacity. This would double electricity production in Ethiopia, which currently supplies only half of the country's population of 120 million people.

The United Nations estimates that “Egypt could run out of water by 2025” and that areas in Sudan, where the conflict in Darfur was primarily linked to water supplies, are increasingly vulnerable to drought due to climate change.

Two citizens were injured by live bullets and others suffocated, today, Saturday, after the Israeli occupation forces targeted peaceful marches in the eastern Gaza Strip.

Local sources said: The occupation soldiers stationed inside their positions and on board their fortified military vehicles fired a barrage of toxic tear gas bombs at dozens of boys and young men demonstrating near the separation fence east of Gaza City, which led to a young man being shot in the foot and others suffocated.

For the eighth day in a row, peaceful marches continue in various places in the eastern Gaza Strip in protest against the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, and against the continuing crimes of the occupation against our people in all governorates of the country, and against our sanctities and our prisoners.

The Israeli occupation forces fired smoke bombs towards a Lebanese army patrol, while it was accompanying a bulldozer that was removing an earthen berm erected by the occupation north of the withdrawal line (the reserved blue line) in the Bastara area in southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese National News Agency reported that the occupation "violated the withdrawal line and fired smoke bombs, while members of the Lebanese patrol responded to the attack by firing tear gas bombs at the soldiers, forcing them to withdraw."

The village of Duma, located in the far southeast of Nablus Governorate, is going through a saga of survival and steadfastness in the face of the Israeli occupation and its settlers, amid its policy of demolishing homes and facilities, in addition to its control over its lands extending to the Palestinian Jordan Valley and stealing them for the benefit of expanding and establishing more settlements, outposts, and military bases.

repeated targeting,

From time to time, the occupation targets this village in its continuous operations to monitor and track the movements of citizens and their agricultural and urban activities. It recently distributed fifty notices of demolition and to return the lands to what they were after the trouble and hardship of their owners, who are making every effort and spending their money to reclaim and rebuild them.

This is not the first time that citizens have received notifications of demolition and stopping construction, as the total number of previous warnings reached more than (150) notifications, according to what the head of the village council, Suleiman Dawabsha, said.

Dawabsha added, while speaking to Al-Quds.com: “The demolition operations also affected a mosque in the Arab Shaqara community, which is inhabited by 80 Bedouins and those interested in raising livestock, in addition to agricultural rooms that constitute a source of livelihood for many farmers, in addition to the destruction of the structures.” Infrastructure, including water and electricity networks, as well as the dredging of agricultural roads.”

Displacement lurks among the population.

The Bedouin communities in the village are exposed to the risk of displacement and forced deportation, and their residents live in states of panic and constant anticipation, fearing that the occupation will demolish their homes and expel them from them at any moment. Four communities have been inhabited for decades, and all of them have access to all basic services, including education, health, electricity, water, and roads. Which the village council provides them with, as do the rest of the villagers.

When talking about Duma, the Palestinians remember the scenes of the horrific Holocaust committed by extremist settlers against the Dawabsha family eight years ago, when they attacked the house of citizen Saad Dawabsha and set it on fire while he and his family were inside, martyring his wife, Reham, and their infant, Ali, while their son, Ahmed, was seriously burned.

Efforts to swallow up land,

The occupation seeks to swallow up Palestinian lands in Duma and its neighboring villages, and confiscate them under the pretext that they are “state property,” “natural reserves,” and “military areas,” which makes it easier for settlers to seize them and build many settlement outposts in their vicinity after they become abandoned and unused. .

Dawabsha continued: “The occupation has always taken racist methods against us, stealing most of our lands, which have a total area of 18 thousand dunums, and annexing them for the benefit of the settlements adjacent to the village, while preventing people and farmers from accessing their lands that fall under classification (C), which hinders them from carrying out their usual activities in the village.” Cultivating the land, cultivating it, and grazing livestock as well.”

Strategic location ,,

The village enjoys a distinctive strategic location, which makes it heavy prey for settlers to plunder its resources, because its eastern slopes overlook the Fasayil Reserve, where the fresh water springs that used to feed the village with drinking water, and its location is east of the so-called “Alon” settlement street, which extends from the north of the West Bank to... Its south has increased its importance to the occupation, which seeks to annex it and displace its population.

It is always located in the middle of a group of settlement blocs. It is besieged from the western side by the “Shilo” settlement, which is an extension of the “Ahia” settlement, and the “Alon” settlement street from the northwestern side, while on its lands from the south is the “Gebeit” camp and the “Hanan” settler, who seizes it. On five thousand dunams of its land, and on the eastern side are the settlements of “Fasayel” and “Maale Ephraim.”

Building threatened with demolition.

The people have no choice but to expand their urban and agricultural activity in their lands classified as (C), even though construction there is threatened with demolition under the pretext of not having a permit. Dawabsha explained: “We took it upon ourselves to expand work and construction within these areas, as a result of the narrow area of the remaining lands within the master plan.” For the village, which amounts to only nine hundred and forty dunums,” adding that this area no longer meets the needs of the population for basic services, natural resources, and residential buildings in light of the natural increase (they number 3,500 people).

Although these components are the simplest that can be provided to support the survival of citizens and their connection to their lands, the occupation’s policy of restricting them and confining them within this limited space forced many residents to leave the village or move to the vertical construction style, according to Dawabsha.

A call to attention,

The head of the village council calls on all governmental and competent authorities to direct their attention to this peaceful village and to make every effort to serve it as much as possible and alleviate the suffering of its residents who face the threat of forced displacement alone, stressing the necessity of providing all the basic components the village needs, especially water, and contributing to Supporting their steadfastness and survival in their lands to confront this settlement incursion.

Water shortage,

The village is now suffering from a shortage of water supplies needed for many of the people’s agricultural and pastoral activities - according to Dawabsha - and this is in addition to being the basis of life for the citizens, as water always arrives from neighboring villages in small quantities, because it represents the last community that receives water from the “Rojib” well. Shared with thirteen village communities in southeastern Nablus.

The occupation is also trying to remove all meanings of clinging to the Fasayil Reserve, the Duma Spring, and Ain al-Rashash, around which a Bedouin community is centered and is also threatened with displacement, even though these springs constitute one of the most important main sources of water in the village, while the occupation seizes their water and prevents residents from accessing it.

Difficulty of transportation,

Dawabsha says: “One of the problems of living in our besieged local community is the difficulty of transportation and the movement of citizens between the village and its surroundings, which hinders the village council from communicating with neighboring areas, as well as carrying out its work in providing the necessary services to the people as well.”

Lack of health services,

He added: "We have a shortage of health services and the absence of nearby relief centers that respond to the residents' calls in urgent cases, especially since the village clinic only works one day every week, and the distance of Douma from the city center delays the arrival of ambulance or civil defense crews in emergency or medical cases." The fires broke out amid the obstacles placed by the occupation on the roads in southern Nablus.

The Council President also hopes to arrange a convenient and safe process for collecting waste from the village’s lanes and streets, in order to dispose of it in healthy ways that limit its accumulation and protect it from environmental pollution, as there is no special mechanism for transporting the village’s waste, while it is collected by an agricultural tractor and then disposed of in a nearby landfill. He is also threatened with removal by the occupation.

1. The ruling Likud party’s internal court on Friday rejected petitions to boot several party activists for inflammatory remarks and actions.

According to Hebrew news website "Times of Israel", In July, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the removal of Itzik Zarka after he was caught on video shouting at protesters, “Ashkenazim, whores, may you burn in hell,” referring to Jews of Eastern European origin.

“I am proud of the six million that were burned, I wish that another six million will be burned,” Zarka said at the time, referencing the Holocaust. “Leftists are traitors, you are the cancer of the country.”

While not acquitting Zarka for his remarks, the court restored his membership effective immediately and handed him a yearlong conditional suspension, which will kick in if he makes any comments over the next three years “relating directly or indirectly to the Holocaust or the murder of six million people because they belong to the Jewish people.”

In its decision, the court described Zarka as “devoted and committed” to Likud and said he “crossed red lines in a manner that cannot be accepted,” before reinstating him.

 “There are comments that have no justification and no atonement. Zarka’s inconceivable comments became the property of the entire public in Israel and will accompany us and especially him for many years to come, like a blue number that is burned on the arm and cannot be removed,” it said, in an apparent reference to the tattoos received by prisoners of Nazi concentration camps.

Zarka, a prominent Likud activist, has a long history of violent statements against those who oppose Netanyahu or his government’s policies, while still enjoying close ties to senior politicians including the premier, as well as to his family.

The tribunal outright rejected petitions to ban activists Rami Ben-Yehuda and Moshe Meron for their contentious statements and actions, saying they “are lovers of their people and country” and lauded their commitment to the party in the face of “incited zombies.”

Among other incidents in the past, the two were documented with posters reading “leftists are traitors” near the Western Wall during a protest by veterans of the 1973 Yom Kippur War against the government’s judicial overhaul.

Part of their defense was a letter from Jerusalem District Prosecutor Nurit Litman, who determined that “leftist traitors” cannot be considered incitement to violence and is protected as freedom of expression.

Ben-Yehuda is known for his attack dog tactics against political rivals and opponents of the party. He was suspended from the Likud in September after physically assaulting anti-Netanyahu protesters, and placed under a restraining order in 2021 for verbally abusing the wife of Likud defector MK Ze’ev Elkin.

Despite his antics, which include calling opponents of the judicial overhaul both “Hitler’s contemptible handmaids” and wishing a lawmaker would be sent “to the gas chambers,” Ben-Yehuda has been feted by senior Likud members and photographed alongside them, and last month received birthday greetings from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Meron, a former Kahanist, was a leading figure in protests against the previous government.

Responding to Friday’s rulings, Likud put out a statement saying it was “sorrowed” the court reinstated Zarka’s membership and said the party’s position was that he should be permanently barred.

 “We will appeal with the appropriate procedures,” the statement said.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party slammed Likud, accusing it of “spitting in the face of hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors.” “Shame on you,” it added. Elkin, the former Likud lawmaker, condemned Likud for its praise of Ben-Yehuda.

“To where have you declined?!” Elkin, now a member of the opposition National Unity party, wrote on X. “And after this they will again tell us that Netanyahu and Likud are not responsible for [Ben-Yehuda’s] thuggery.”

A normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia will isolate the Palestinians, Israel’s United Nations envoy said on Friday.

Gilad Erdan spoke to Israel’s Kan public broadcaster on Friday regarding the concessions Israel’s far-right ruling coalition could make to secure a deal with then Saudis.

Erdan recalled Netanyahu’s agreement in 2020 to delay plans to annex Palestinian territory in the West Bank until 2024 to secure a normalization deal with the United Arab Emirates.

The Israeli envoy said that a similar concession is “all the more so possible when talking about a peace deal that ends the Arab-Israeli conflict, except for the Palestinians.”

“[This] will isolate the Palestinians and leave them alone by themselves. Under these circumstances, I’m confident that the ministers of the government will know how to make the right consideration,” he said.

Erdan said that the Palestinian Authority has worked against a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal because of this.

The ambassador's remarks follow remarks from the leaders of Israel and Saudi Arabia this week indicating progress towards an agreement.

Although open to the prospect of normalization with Israel, Saudi Arabia has placed a number of conditions on any deal.

These include a defensive security pact that opens access to further US weaponry, as well as support in developing a civilian nuclear program which would allow Riyadh to enrich uranium.

Riyadh has also conditioned any deal on the formation of an independent Palestinian state. 

At the UN on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country was "at the cusp" of agreeing a deal with Riyadh.

Kan reported that after the speech, a number of ministers from the premier's Likud Party sent messages indicating that they are not ready to accept concessions relating to the West Bank.

Separately on Friday, Israel's Channel 13 reported that a number of coalition members from the far-right Religious Zionism and Jewish Power parties have threatened consequences for making concessions to the Palestinians.

Quoting sources close to Netanyahu, the broadcaster reported that Israel will make good faith gestures to the Palestinians, but they will not come at the expense of settlements or Israeli control over Area C of the West Bank.

Severe deprivation is no stranger to Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world. But the sanctions imposed by West African countries in response to the July 26 coup worsened the conditions of citizens.

Everyone is complaining about inflation resulting from the harsh economic and financial measures imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on July 30, four days after a military coup ousted elected President Mohamed Bazoum.

In this vast desert country, which lacks a seafront and relies heavily on its neighbors, the price of a bag of imported rice (25 kg) is 14,500 CFA francs (22 euros), compared to 11,500 francs (about 18 euros) before the sanctions.

"So far there is no shortage. The stock of goods will allow the country to last until December," said Shaibou Chiombiano, Secretary General of the Union of Traders Exporters and Importers in Niger.

But he warned that China and Thailand's reduction in their rice exports might cause a "scarcity" of this much-needed food in Niger.

Since the sanctions, residents have turned to locally produced rice. But factory activity slowed due to neighboring Nigeria suspending the supply of electricity to Niger and closing the common border, according to the Nigerian Ministry of Commerce.

Nigeria, the economic giant whose president, Bola Tinubu, currently holds the rotating presidency of ECOWAS, supplies Niger with about 70% of its electricity needs.

While the markets are still full of foodstuffs, the effects of the blockade are especially evident in medicine stocks, the majority of their shipments enter through the port of Cotonou in neighboring Benin, which has also closed its borders, noting that 80 percent of Nigerian shipping goods pass through these borders.

The Secretary-General of the Pharmacists Syndicate in Niger, Amadou Seini Maiga, explained to Agence France-Presse that “the percentage of medicine shortages has ranged between 30 and 55 percent since September 19 (while) the permissible ceiling is 7 percent.” To prevent a “disaster,” he called for “lifting” the blockade imposed on medicines.
On the border with Benin, hundreds of trucks loaded with goods are prevented from entering Niger, as the only bridge over the Niger River is blocked by trucks and large containers.

In contrast, boats shuttle illegally between the two banks of the river to transport passengers, goods and livestock.
In Niger, smuggling networks controlled by influential parties are trying to ensure that many regions in the west and south of the country are supplied with what they need, including the Zinder and Maradi regions on the border with Nigeria.
“Smugglers, using motorcycles and small vehicles, bring in large quantities of basic products,” a Maradi resident said.
As for the northern regions of Niger, they have so far avoided the repercussions of the siege.

"Thanks to the Algerian and Libyan corridors, we are receiving very good supplies, with trucks regularly arriving loaded with pasta, oil, flour, household appliances and building materials," Agadez Mayor Abderrahmane Tourawa told AFP.
The Nigerian military regime is now relying on internal financial resources, after freezing the assets of the central bank in a country that produces uranium, oil and gold.

In this context, the military-appointed Prime Minister, Ali Muhammad al-Amin Zein, praised his ability to pay the salaries of employees and members of the security forces for the months of July and August from internal revenues alone.

Trade Minister Sidhu Aseman confirmed to national television that the government was "exploring all possible sources" to continue.

After the majority of Western countries stopped their development aid, the military regime began searching for other allies, especially in the region.

Burkina Faso, which is also led by military personnel, showed its solidarity with Niger by keeping its borders open.
Many voices have been raised outside Niger against the sanctions policy, including the "Doctors Without Borders" organization, which called at the beginning of September to "stop adopting any logic based on collective punishment."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today, Saturday, that he is the decision maker within his government, and that the government was the one who took the decision to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, despite the reservations of Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.

Netanyahu was responding to a question directed to him in an interview with the American channel CNN, about his position on the strong opposition within his government to making concessions to the Palestinians.

Netanyahu said about Smotrich and Ben Gvir's reactions: They are talking, and in the end they are politicians.

In response to a question about how he would be able to pass any measures in favor of the Palestinians in his current coalition, Netanyahu replied, “People do not realize how the current coalition works... They are the ones who joined me, and I am not the one who joined them.”