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.”

On Saturday, an international campaign was launched by several countries in conjunction with an event in the Gaza port, to demand the lifting of the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, which has extended for more than 17 years.

Dozens of people participated in the launch event of the campaign called “Open Gaza’s Ports,” raising slogans requesting the lifting of the siege and opening the Gaza Strip’s crossings to operate with complete freedom and allowing the entry of all the Gaza Strip’s needs.

The head of the government media office in Gaza, Salama Marouf, said that the occupation prevents more than 6,000 patients annually from going out for treatment abroad, in addition to preventing the entry of dozens of medical devices and supplies into the Gaza Strip.

Marouf pointed out that the occupation has destroyed more than 2,500 industrial facilities in the Gaza Strip over the past years, and is also preventing the arrival of electricity supplies and failing all projects working to solve the electricity crisis.

Marouf accused the Israeli occupation of committing an international crime by continuing its siege of the Gaza Strip for more than 17 years, saying: “We say enough is enough for this Zionist siege and let the ports of Gaza be opened and the siege broken.”

He added: "The world must respond to the call of our people in the Gaza Strip and end the siege, and our message today is that this siege must end."

For his part, President of the General Union of Cultural Centers, Yousry Darwish, said, “This event is part of joint work that will be launched to tell the world that we will not accept the continuation of the siege on the Gaza Strip.”

Darwish added: We send a message to the whole world that the Palestinian people cannot continue to suffer alone, calling on the whole world to intervene to end the siege.

He continued: Our people have the right to lift the siege and gain freedom of movement and travel, demanding that the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip be provided with a decent life, and that they be supported and assisted.

Today, Saturday, settlers attacked sheep herders in the village of Al-Mughayir, east of Ramallah.

According to local sources, a number of armed settlers from the Shilo settlement attacked him and his cousin Atef, under the protection of the occupation forces, while they were grazing sheep on their land.

Al-Mughayir is constantly exposed to settler attacks.

Today, Saturday, the Israeli occupation continues its intransigence and refusal to respond to the demands of administrative detainee Kayed Al-Fasfus (34 years old) from the city of Dura in Hebron, who has been on hunger strike for 52 days in rejection of his arbitrary administrative detention.

According to the Prisoners' Club, the Prison Administration, as part of the ongoing systematic abuse operations against the prisoner Al-Fasfous, transferred him the day before yesterday from the cells of the Negev Desert Prison to the cells of Ashkelon Prison, where the transfers constitute part of the abuse measures that it deliberately uses against the strikers with the aim of exhausting them. Physically.

The Prisoner's Club added that the process of transferring Phosphos, after he had been on strike for more than 50 days, to the cells instead of transferring him to a civilian hospital, is a message that the occupation is continuing a systematic process of revenge against him.

In a previous statement from the Prisoner's Club, he confirmed that Al-Fafsous suffers from serious health conditions, and that the risks to his life are escalating, especially since, in addition to the prison administration's retaliatory measures, the occupation courts play a fundamental role in torturing him, and they reflected this by rejecting the appeal recently filed by his lawyer.

It is noteworthy that the occupation had administratively re-arrested Al-Fafsous on 5/2/2023. He is a former prisoner who spent about (7) years in the occupation’s prisons, and he began facing arrest in 2007.

Al-Fafsous went on a hunger strike at the end of May and the beginning of last June, which lasted for 9 days. He had also previously gone on a strike in 2021 against his administrative detention, which lasted for 131 days.

It is noteworthy that the prisoner is married and the father of a daughter, and all his brothers were arrested. Today, alongside him are four other brothers who are administratively detained: Hassan (37 years old), Khaled (35 years old), Akram (39 years old), and Hafez (40 years old). His family was subjected to harassment, as part of the crime (collective punishment).

It is worth noting that the number of administrative detainees, as of the end of August 2023, reached (1264), including (20) children and (4) female prisoners, and with the escalation of administrative detention operations since last year and the current year, individual strikes against detention have escalated. In the context of confronting this crime, dozens of administrative detainees continue to boycott the occupation military courts since last year.

The National Office for Land Defense and Settlement Resistance confirmed that settlement in the West Bank is an “investment project” sponsored by the occupying state, and provides it with all the ingredients for success to attract the largest number of settlers.

The office explained in its report that the occupying state is not content with seizing Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, with brutal tools and turning them into a vital field for its destructive settlement activities, but is also working to provide support to Israeli associations and companies that undertake construction operations in the settlements and market them as investment projects. To attract the largest number of settlers to live in these settlements.

He pointed out that this is an old, well-known issue, but it began to take on new and dangerous dimensions with Netanyahu forming his far-right government in partnership with the religious Zionist parties.

In order to reach the declared goal of increasing the number of settlers, the government (Netanyahu - Smotrich - Ben Gvir) not only sponsors settlement as the cornerstone of the policy and practices of the Zionist movement, but it also sponsors it as an investment project that attracts the participation of the private sector in more than one area and field.

Two important areas
In its report, the National Office reviewed two fields directly related to the theft of Palestinian lands. The first is investment in housing, while the second is investment in the theft of fertile Palestinian lands, especially in the Palestinian Jordan Valley. With the formation of the Israeli government, in which Bezalel Smotrich, alongside the Ministry of Finance, is responsible for civil administration and settlement affairs in the Ministry of the Army, conditions have become more ripe than ever before to intensify and deepen settlement in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and to promote it as an investment project as well, with the aim of raising The number of settlers will reach one million by the end of 2024.

Investing in housing
In this context, the newspaper "Israel Hayom" recently published reports on the subject, and claimed that Jewish investors who seek to invest in relatively small amounts are active behind the Green Line in areas intended for settlement construction in the West Bank, where the residential apartment is initially marketed for about 170 thousand shekels. Only, investors rush to buy, a low price when compared to the price of an apartment within the borders of 1948, which today averages about 1.6 million shekels, according to the newspaper, especially since construction procedures in the West Bank are much faster than inside Israel, and more importantly The resulting profit is very large, and according to the newspaper’s expectations, from the moment the land is allocated for construction and the construction process progresses, the price of the apartment jumps to 600 thousand shekels, meaning the investors concerned get four times the value of the investment, and if the investors fear the possibility of freezing settlement construction, the current government The new one takes care of dispelling all these fears.

According to data circulating in Israeli circles, especially the far-right and settler media, companies such as “Dissi Construction and Investment”, “Tsarvati Shimon”, “Tamar and Yael”, “Avni Deresh”, “Z.F” and others have been carrying out operations for years. Building in the settlements and reaping huge profits from it, it confirms that its work after the rise of the fascist right to power in Israel is better than any previous period, and that those who do not invest in these areas do not understand what the current Israeli investment reality is.

Israel Hayom explains that the bureaucratic path to approving building plans in the West Bank is much simpler than it is within the 1948 borders, as the time frame for approving plans is very short. In addition, there are no improvement fees in land deals, that is, in the event of reclamation. And development, which leads to savings of 35% - 50% compared to similar deals in Israel, and she adds that construction in the West Bank has gained widespread legitimacy in recent years, as ministers, members of the Knesset, and mayors tour the region and make promises to establish new settlements and settlement cities. On these lands, they expect to receive significant support from the current Israeli government.

In general, and in order to encourage the move of settlers to live in the settlements, official government data show that every Israeli who moves to live in the settlements receives support of more than 50 thousand dollars annually, in addition to tax privileges and exemptions, many benefits, incentives and facilities, and the development of financial projects inside and around them.

Robbery of fertile lands
Investment in settlement is not limited to residential apartments in existing settlements, or those that are being prepared to be built by legitimizing dozens of settlement outposts and transforming them into new settlements or neighborhoods of existing settlements and what are also called pastoral farms, according to the plans of the current Israeli government. Rather, it extends over a wider area. To cover various economic sectors to which the occupying state provides many facilities and incentives, so that investors in these sectors achieve lucrative profits. The Palestinian Jordan Valley here, starting from Jericho and the northern Dead Sea up to the borders of Tubas, that is, the southern, central and northern Jordan Valley, is a wide field for the work of colonial investors and Israeli investment companies. In this region, 65,000 Palestinians live in 29 towns and population centers, including about 15,000 Palestinians living in a number of small Bedouin communities, while the current Israeli government plans to increase the number of settlers in the region during the next two years from 12,000 to 30,000 settlers through facilities. There is a wide area for investment and housing in the area at lower prices than in the rest of the West Bank.

Since the rise of the fascist right to power in Israel following the recent elections to the Knesset, there has been widespread propaganda to stimulate housing and investment in the Palestinian Jordan Valley. Everyone knows that the occupying state, through legal tricks, had increased the area of “state land” in this region to about 54% of its area, that is, four times what it was before 1967. It declared large areas of it as firing zones and closed 20% of its area as nature reserves. That is, it controlled more than 80% of its area. Theoretically, the occupying state allocated 12% of this area to settlements, settlement outposts, and pastoral farms, but in practice, the entire area has turned into a vital area for investments and settlement activities. The Palestinians in the area are trapped in small ghettos, deprived of the right to... Urban planning and construction and the right to access water to develop their agriculture, especially since the water in the Eastern Basin, which is the most important basin in the West Bank, is allocated exclusively to settlers and settlements. Settlement in the Palestinian Jordan Valley, in addition to being a robbery of Palestinian lands, is a very rewarding investment process for settlers and companies. Investment farms, where palm farms, roses, herbs, vegetables, poultry, cows, artificial lakes, and other Israeli investments extend, reaping profits estimated at about $750 million annually according to the worst and lowest estimates. As for the Palestinian side, its losses are no less than $800 million due to the strict restrictions on their gatherings and whatnot. What remains is their land and their investments.

A new settlement wave
At the level of destructive settlement activities, sponsored by the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government, it seems that we are facing an unprecedented fourth wave to change the situation in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, at an increasing pace. This government is pushing plans to build thousands of settlement units in the West Bank, along with thousands more in East Jerusalem. Since its formation in December of last year, the Civil Administration under the leadership of “Smotrich” has been promoting settlement projects after the Jewish holidays through legislation in the Knesset, and has given the green light to the Planning Council in the Civil Administration and the Ministry of Housing to begin the promotion process after it has passed. Submitting and approving plans, as promotion is the final stage in the approval stages of construction plans.

In comparison between last year and the first half of this year, there has been a major boom in construction operations in West Bank settlements. After the construction bids approved in 2022 were about 4,427 housing units, the number tripled in the first half of 2023, as the Supreme Planning Council, which approves construction projects in the West Bank, met three times in 2023 and approved the construction of 12,855. housing units, in addition to publishing tenders for the construction of 1,289 units that have already been approved, which represents the largest number of housing units that have been developed in the West Bank settlements, including Jerusalem, since the Oslo Accords. This government has taken a number of steps to advance the construction process in the settlements. Among them is approval to legitimize the occupation of 15 settlement outposts and convert 10 of them into new settlements and five outposts as neighborhoods in existing settlements.

This acceleration in the intensification of construction operations in the settlements and in giving false legitimacy to many settlement outposts comes in light of the decision to establish a “settlers administration” and transfer the powers of the civil administration to Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of the Army, who established this new governmental body to supervise all aspects of settlers’ life. inside the occupied territories.

Today, Saturday, settlers performed Talmudic rites and rituals near the two doors of the council and a station in the vicinity of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

According to local sources, dozens of settlers, protected by the occupation forces, performed Talmudic rituals and provocative dances in front of the worshipers.

Every day except Friday and Saturday, Al-Aqsa Mosque is subjected to a series of violations and incursions by settlers, with the protection of the occupation police, in an attempt to impose full control over the mosque and divide it in time and space.

Today, Saturday, the occupation municipality imposed an unjust decision on citizen Badr Dendis to self-demolish his house in the Ras al-Amoud neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem within a week.

The occupation authorities handed over the order to the citizen of Jerusalem, Dendis, and asked him to demolish his house, which consists of three rooms and its annexes, with an area of 140 square meters, and to photograph the house after the demolition, otherwise they will demolish it with their vehicles and bear the citizen Dendis all the costs resulting from that.

Citizen Dendis said that he built the house, which is located on the last floor of a residential building, 12 years ago and that he lives in it with eight members of his family.

Dendis added that the Israeli municipality imposed a fine on him worth 40,000 shekels and threatened him with a similar fine if he did not self-demolish his house within a week.

Dendis concluded that he will begin the demolition process during this week, expressing his extreme anger at this unjust decision, which will displace his family, who will become homeless.

The New York Times revealed, on Friday, that federal corruption charges have been brought against US Senator Bob Menendez (Democrat from New Jersey), who is considered one of the staunchest supporters of Israel and the most influential in the Senate, for using his position in a wide range of “corrupt schemes at home and abroad.” It included suspicious dealings with the Egyptian government.

The newspaper said that the indictment consists of three main charges against Senator Menendez, Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his wife, and three businessmen from New Jersey.

These accusations are preceded by Menendez’s attempt to secretly provide the Egyptian government with sensitive information about the American government.

Internally, the senator was accused of seeking to influence criminal investigations of two New Jersey businessmen.

Chuck Schumer, President of the Senate (Democrat from New York State), confirmed on Friday that Menendez had temporarily stepped down as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee following the accusations against him and his wife.

Schumer said in a statement that Menendez, who has given no indication that he will leave his Senate seat, has the right to due process and a fair trial. He added that Menendez would step down "until a solution is reached."

The indictment says Menendez used his position to attempt to disrupt the investigation and prosecution of a businessman by the New Jersey Attorney General's Office.

The indictment also stated that in exchange for this (obstructing the investigation), the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, of Lebanese origin, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, including cash, gold bullion, mortgage payments, a luxury car, and other valuables.

This is the second time that Menendez has been prosecuted on corruption charges, but the first time the jury was unable to agree, forcing the judge to declare the case dismissed, which does not mean acquittal.

In turn, Menendez's lawyer, Schertler, said that the senator denies any criminal behavior and will vigorously challenge these accusations in court.

The New York Times said it was not able to contact representatives of the senator and the three businessmen to comment on these accusations.

The charges against Menendez, 69, follow a lengthy investigation conducted by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

It also comes nearly six years after the end of his trial on unrelated corruption charges.

The businessmen named in the indictment, which was unsealed in Manhattan federal court, are Fred Daibes (of Lebanese origin), a prominent New Jersey real estate developer and fundraiser for Menendez; Wael Hanna (also of Lebanese descent), an old friend of Menendez's wife, who founded a halal meat certification company, and José Uribe, who works in trucking and insurance.

Menendez was reportedly under federal scrutiny, and he said he was willing to help investigators and was confident the matter would be "closed."

The 39-page indictment accuses the senator, his wife, and businessmen of conspiring to receive bribes and conspiring to commit fraud.

Menendez and his wife are also accused of conspiring to commit "acts of extortion by using his position to force someone to give them something of value."

The senator's follow-up may affect his efforts to maintain his position during the upcoming elections.

Menendez already faces at least one Democratic challenger in his scheduled run for re-election to a fourth term in the Senate.

If Menendez resigns before the end of his term, New Jersey's Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy, will be responsible for appointing his successor, according to the newspaper.

Damian Williams, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James Smith, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in New York, are scheduled to announce the charges at a press conference later, Friday.

Menendez, his wife, and the three other defendants are expected to appear in Manhattan federal court next Wednesday, according to what the New York Times quoted Nicholas Biasi, spokesman for the Southern District, as saying.

This is not the first time this senator has faced the courts. In 2015, Menendez was accused of receiving bribes in what federal prosecutors described as a scheme between the senator and a wealthy eye doctor to barter political favors for gifts worth nearly $1 million, including luxury vacations in... Caribbean and electoral campaign contributions.

Menendez's corruption trial ended in November 2017, after the jury said it was unable to reach a verdict.

The judge later acquitted Menendez of several charges, while the Justice Department dropped the other charges.

As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez is one of the most influential Democrats in Washington.

Menendez, born to immigrant parents from Cuba, served in the state House of Representatives and Senate before being elected to the US House of Representatives.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said that with the pledges made at the conference held on Friday, it “will not be able to maintain its vital basic services for Palestine refugees except for the months of September and October.”

UNRWA added in a press statement issued on Saturday that it "will continue its efforts to mobilize the necessary funding to sustain its services until the end of the year."

UNRWA said that Jordan and Sweden hosted a high-level ministerial meeting to support Palestine refugees and UNRWA on the sidelines of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, in the presence of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Member states reaffirmed their strong political support for the agency, and explored ways to break the stalemate that threatens its ability to provide basic services to Palestine refugees in the region, according to a statement by UNRWA, a copy of which was received by Dunya Al Watan.

It added that the generous pledges made by many Member States today will contribute to UNRWA's main budget used for vital services, including education and health care, and also to its emergency responses to multiple crises in the region.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said during the meeting: “I am very proud of the work of UNRWA - which is a lifeline for millions of Palestine refugees, but I am very concerned about its future.”

He added that the needs continue to increase, but the funds remain in place or decrease, noting that "preserving UNRWA is in our collective interest and is our collective responsibility."

For his part, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said: “What is urgently required is a just political solution for Palestine refugees, whose plight remains one of the longest unresolved refugee crises in the world.”

He added, "While we welcome the pledges made at this meeting, I urge our partners to place the protection of the rights of Palestine refugees at the top of their political agendas and to address the issue of UNRWA's sustainability."

UNRWA appealed to its partners to urgently provide sufficient funds this week, and to raise the focus on UNRWA from the financial situation to the sustainability of the agency and the right of Palestine refugees to a dignified life.

1. Today, Saturday, the Israeli occupation forces arrested 3 young men in the cities of Hebron and Jenin.
2. 
   
3. In Hebron, the young man, Suhaib Al-Atrash, was arrested after the occupation forces raided and searched his house.
4. 
   
5. In Jenin, the occupation forces arrested the two young men, Muhammad Nasr Ammor and Izz al-Din Ahmed Ammor, from the village of Anza, south of the city, while they were passing through the “Dotan” military checkpoint, which is located on the lands of the town of Ya’bad.
6. 
   
7. 
   
8. 
   

Repeating political talk, speeches, statements, and other things that we have heard repeatedly is no longer useful and has no value. Rather, it is a waste of time and an effort to implant the unreasonable and the unacceptable in the minds of those who care about it or follow it.

The destructive reality of the occupation is what it does not once, but repeatedly, and we suffer and pay a heavy price for our land and our future. The last thing that this hateful occupation did, but not the last, was to issue 85 military orders to seize control of large areas of the lands of Jerusalem and its environs and seize 350 A dunum of land from neighboring villages and towns.

Also, a young man was seriously injured in Jerusalem and another was arrested at the Qalandiya checkpoint. There were raids into the city of Jerusalem and settlers attacked its people and its surroundings.

As President Abu Mazen said in his speech at the United Nations, since 1948 until today, about a thousand decisions have been issued on the Palestinian issue and the occupation’s attacks, but none of them were implemented, and the decision remained for the strongest and arrogant who do not understand and do not want to understand anything other than expansion, building more settlements, and confiscation. land and displacing citizens whenever possible.

We heard that the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued a statement confirming that settler violence is displacing Palestinians and is increasing, and more than a thousand people have been displaced since last year. This statement issued by the United Nations confirmed that incidents related to settlers affect the Palestinians, their lives and their land daily.

The holy Al-Aqsa Mosque is still subject to attacks, as more than 200 settlers stormed it and performed Talmudic prayers and religious rituals in its courtyards. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Tsapala, also held a press conference at the Patriarchate headquarters in Bab al-Khalil in Jerusalem, in which he spoke about the measures and harassment that churches and clergy are being subjected to at the hands of Police in Jerusalem and elsewhere and provocations from religious Jewish extremists.

Speech is no longer effective and no one listens to it. Serious practical and field stances must be taken to work to stop the practices of the occupation and the settlers in the first place.

The Palestinian people, the owners of this Arab land, the land of Palestine, are a politicized people, politicized at home and abroad.
In the homeland in particular, his entire life since his birth has depended on a political decision! It is often a brutal occupier who can turn his life upside down with the stroke of a pen, or with the scream of a fascist Knesset member, or with a pistol shot from a terrorist that kills you or your brother, or with a cursed shell from the occupying army that smashes his house over his head.

In addition, the occupation can change the nature of the land on which the Palestinian Arab lives, including streets, buildings, or trees, without permission from the land owner. He (i.e. the owner of the land) has no power over what is happening to the occupation that controls the country, and the people are subjected to calamities and daily war, theft, and the process of racial segregation and apartheid are practiced against them.

Therefore, all Palestinian affairs, including eating, drinking, breathing, and movement, no matter how small, are subject to politics, especially violent Israeli politics, and subject to the logic of the necessity of steadfastness, composure, patience, and steadfastness, and thus revolution and resistance.

The Palestinian youth does not need to be encouraged or urged to resist the occupier, as the factors of incitement, incitement and motivation come from the occupier himself on a daily basis. The occupation inflames feelings of hostility towards it with its ugly actions, and it incites the youth (in fact, as if it is begging them) to resist it with its inhumane violations.
How could it not be, when the young man was arrested at a young age and was subjected to all the aggressive practices against him in detention? Or as he sees his brother, father, or sister being arrested or perhaps killed before his eyes... and he sees his house (Tahwisha Al-Omar) being demolished. There is no young Palestinian today who has not been attacked directly or indirectly by the occupation army or gangs of terrorist colonialists. Direct, so the Palestinian Arab is inherently political.
The daily (routine aggressive) actions carried out by the Israelis in the Gaza Strip, or in the West Bank (and likewise, albeit in a different form inside, or against the Palestinians as well abroad), including killing, siege, or endless restrictions, are entrusted with bringing about popular revolution and resistance to the occupation. It is the responsibility of these measures to create a rebellious generation that will be more violent and cruel than the previous one. Every action has a reaction, and the forces may not be equal, but the reaction may be latent, and when it finds its opportunity, it will revolt in a way that the oppressive and breathless occupier does not expect.

Politics for the Palestinian student or young man begins when he wakes up in the morning, anticipating, calculating, and anxious about going to his school or university! Neither the road is safe nor the school or university safe! Of course, his life is not safe, nor is the street as free to move as it is for any ordinary non-Palestinian person in his country, because the dozens of permanent checkpoints in the West Bank that divide the land and protect the colonizers carry out their daily incitement work, as do male and female soldiers who lack humanity, and organized gangs of colonialists with their attacks. Frequently (they see it as routine, and they even treat attacks and killings as an outing under the auspices of army forces) in the streets, against stones, against humans, against animals, and against trees. Therefore, the Palestinian student and young man achieves his growing internal revolution not primarily from the literature, books, statements, or practices of the Palestinian factions, but rather from the aggressive actions of the occupation.

When a student wakes up from his sleep, he cannot be sure that he or one of his friends will ever be able to reach his school or university unscathed (mentally or physically). Likewise, schools or universities themselves (like every place in Palestine) are not immune from the occupation’s attacks, and this applies to all other aspects of life. Therefore, the Palestinian youth is unique from all the youth of the entire world. He has been political since birth.

Politics among Palestinian Arab youth has “three” forms of practice. The first is that it practices politics in the sense of struggle and resistance on the ground, whether by rejecting the occupation by stone, raising one’s voice, demonstrating, challenging its attacks, or by steadfast steadfastness on the ground, in his university and all its activities, and he practices politics. Second: By belonging to a faction here or a faction there, he acquires to incite the occupation a measuring tool, methods of dealing, a new culture, and a thought that focuses and confirms the political goal that must not deviate from the absolute belief in the justice of the issue and our eternal right on the historical, religious, legal, and political levels. From here arises the desire of the young man to gain more understanding. It means more work to achieve understanding.

Third: Involvement in politics among young people is understood practically in practice and not only in the theoretical cultural dimension. This is done primarily through the school or university portal, belonging to factions on the basis of belonging, commitment, and involvement in student action or serving the masses and popular resistance, and in public political life through the portal of participation through voluntary effort. Sharing time and participating in the decision, otherwise no.

The greatest credit for the growing awareness of young people and their involvement in politics and field work is due first to the practices of the occupation and then to the experiences of young people and their immediate surroundings, which feed into the above-mentioned act of intensifying rejection of silence or weakness. Or admitting the defeat that the occupation's actions come to achieve, and thus returning to his real slaughter. The ambition of the young man or student remains linked to the strict rejectionist mind of “Abu Iyad,” or to the courage of “Abu Jihad,” or the mobility and charisma of the immortal Yasser Arafat, or the theorizing of Khaled Al-Hassan, so he does not get lost from whichever of them he quoted, or in the path of the friends who preceded them.

Pay attention and follow the thinking of the colony’s leaders. It is not possible to explain what they are doing on the ground against the Palestinians, including brutality, killing, cleansing, and deportation, whether in Areas 48 or Areas 67, while affirming in recognition that the colony’s tools of action against the Palestinians differ from one location to another, according to Smotrich’s expression: 1- The Israeli Arabs, that is, those who remained in their homeland in the Palestinian Arab cities and villages that were seized in 1948 by the colonial forces, and were unable to expel them, and they remained and imposed Israeli citizenship on them despite the discrimination imposed on them compared to the rights, gains and privileges of the Hebrew-Israeli nationality, of the Jewish Israelis.

2- Arabs of “Judea and Samaria,” that is, residents of Palestinian Arab cities and villages in the areas of the second occupation in 1967, people of the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Smotrich lays out his announced plan to address the challenges facing the colony project, at the forefront of which is the demographic factor and the presence of Palestinian Arabs on the land of the “colony” extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, while emphasizing the refusal to give the Palestinians the right to establish their state on the land of “Israel” Palestine.

Smotrich acknowledges that “the battle has not yet been decided to this day, as we still have a population within the Land of Israel, who refuse to recognize the fundamental right of the State of Israel to exist as a state for the Jewish people, who continue to undermine its existence and its Hebrew identity,” and that “the Arabs in Judea and Samaria, seeking and aims to establish an Arab state within the 1967 borders, while not hiding the fact that this is only a stop towards their real goal: returning to Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, and Tiberias, and establishing an Arab state on the ruins of the State of Israel, and they teach their children about this at home, school, and in summer camps. No one denies that these (whether in areas 48 or areas 67) are the basic assets of Palestinian nationalism.”

Smotrich says the plan (which he developed, entitled the Decisive Plan), aims to deal with this issue: the issue of Palestinian aspirations, whether in areas 48 or areas 67, and the necessity of working to thwart them.

Smotrich proceeds to acknowledge that "the Palestinian people are nothing but a movement opposed to the Zionist movement. This is its essence and the reason for its existence."

The Zionist movement, he says, "came to return the Land of Israel to the Jews."

He adds: “The continuation of conflicting national aspirations on our small piece of land will guarantee more years of bloodshed and the perpetuation of armed conflict. Therefore, one of the two parties must, voluntarily or by force, abandon its national aspirations in the Land of Israel, and the party that must abandon its aspirations to achieve its national identity in the Land of “Israel is the Arab side,” the Palestinian.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that there is a rare opportunity within several months to reach an agreement to normalize relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and if we are not able to achieve this in the coming months, it is expected that these endeavors will be postponed to several subsequent years.

This came during a television interview with the American Fox News network, several hours after he delivered his speech from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly.

Netanyahu touched on the obstacles facing efforts to sign the Abraham Accord to normalize relations between Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and stressed the possibility of overcoming them and reaching a historic turning point that creates a new Middle East and opens a new corridor between Asia and Europe.

He believed that achieving peace with Saudi Arabia, and starting to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, would lead to the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling on the Palestinians to benefit from the agreement.

He refused to reveal the concessions that Israel might be prepared to make on the Palestinian track in order to sign the agreement to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia. He was also quoted by the Arabic-language Makan channel.

The State Department condemns far-right coalition MK Limor Son Har-Melech after she defended the Jewish terrorist responsible for the 2015 murders of three members of a Palestinian Dawabsheh family  as a “holy righteous man.”

“It is critical for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution. This certainly includes inflammatory rhetoric and actions,” reads a statement from a State Department spokesperson. “We would refer to the Knesset member to discuss those comments.”

Netanyahu’s coalition partners hailed his speech Friday to the UN General Assembly in which he said Israel is on the verge of normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia, while insisting they would not support Israeli concessions widely understood to be a critical component of the deal. Itamar Ben Gvir, head of the far-right Oztma Yehedit party said his and a second far-right party would quit the coalition if such concessions were made.

The responses highlighted the lack of wiggle room Netanyahu has to negotiate, even as both the US and Saudi Arabia have made clear that he will need to offer something significant to advance a two-state solution in order to get the deal across the finish line.

“If there will be concessions for the Palestinians, we will not remain in the government — and not just us, but the Religious Zionism party as well. Netanyahu can only make this deal with Benny Gantz,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who heads the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, said in a statement, referring to the opposition National Unity faction chairman who has already ruled out the possibility of joining Netanyahu’s government to ensure a Saudi normalization deal.

Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism hold 14 Knesset seats together, and without them, Netanyahu’s coalition would lose its majority.

“Otzma Yehudit supports normalization — on this Netanyahu has our full support. But we will not accept any concessions to the Palestinians. I told the prime minister not to put us in a corner,” Ben Gvir said.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of Religious Zionism, praised Netanyahu’s performance at the UN but subtly indicated what he’d be willing to give in exchange for normalization with Arabia. “Together, with God’s help, we will bring peace for peace. We will continue to maintain Israel’s security, settle in all of its regions, developing along with all of the Middle East and the entire world,” he wrote on X.

Smotrich, who has spearheaded the government’s record-setting rate of approvals for settlement home construction, already said last month that he would not countenance any concessions for the Palestinians.

The term “peace for peace” was used by Netanyahu to describe the 2020 Abraham Accords, which turned the prevailing logic on its head by seeing Israel normalize ties with additional Arab countries before it reached a peace deal with the Palestinians.

But contrary to Netanyahu’s framing that Israel did not give up anything in exchange for normalization in 2020, he did agree to shelve plans to annex large parts of the West Bank as part of the UAE deal.

Several other coalition lawmakers used the same “peace for peace” phrase in their praise of Netanyahu’s speech on Friday, including Justice Minister Yariv Levin of Likud.

“We are advancing peace for peace. We are actualizing the vision of peace between Israel and the Arab world,” Levin wrote on Facebook.

Likud Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said: “A powerful speech by Prime Minister Netanyahu. Together with him, we will advance peace with strength, based on truth. A new Middle East of peace for peace.”

Likud MK Danny Danon, a former envoy to the UN, appeared to be the only coalition lawmaker willing to acknowledge that a deal with Saudi Arabia will require Israeli gestures to the Palestinians.

However, Danon insisted in a Kan public broadcaster interview that they would be merely economic measures. “The Saudi issue should not be conditioned on the Palestinian issue,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu presented a new map erasing Palestine during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) 78th session on Friday. 

The illustration showed a "new Middle East" wherein the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip appeared to be part of Israel.

An earlier erroneous map shown by Netanyahu also included the Palestinian territories as part of Israel in 1948. 

Israel did not control the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, or the Gaza Strip following its violent creation in 1948 on 80 percent of historic Palestine. It illegally occupied them in 1967, and continues to do so in what is known as the longest occupation in modern history. 

The inclusion of Palestinian lands (and sometimes land belonging to Syria and Lebanon) in Israeli maps is common among believers of the concept of Eretz Yisrael - Greater Israel - a key part of ultra-nationalist Zionism that claims all of these lands belong to a Zionist state.

Earlier this year, Netanyahu's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, spoke from a podium adorned with a map that also included Palestine, Lebanon and Syria as part of Greater Israel. In the same event, he said there was "no such thing as Palestinians". 

The use of such maps by Israeli officials comes at a time when Netanyahu's ultra-nationalist government has taken steps that experts say amount to the "de jure annexation" of the occupied West Bank. De jure is a legal term that describes a practice as it is recognised in law. 

During the presentation of the map on Friday, Netanyahu enthusiastically promoted the reshaping of the region based on establishing ties with Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. 

"There's no question: the Abraham Accords heralded the dawn of a new age of peace," he claimed. "I believe we're on the cusp of a more dramatic breakthrough: a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia."

His remarks come amid US-sponsored talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia to establish formal relations.

This week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman suggested that they are edging closer to such an agreement "every day".

During an interview with Fox News, the crown prince said the "Palestinian issue is very important" in these talks, but did not elaborate further. 

When asked what concessions he would expect Israel to give to the Palestinians, he said that was "part of the negotiation".  

Netanyahu stressed on Friday that "we must not give the Palestinians a veto over new peace treaties with Arab states". 

His speech comes a day after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UNGA, saying that Middle East peace is not achievable until Palestinians are granted full rights with statehood.

"Those who think that peace can prevail in the Middle East without the Palestinian people enjoying their full legitimate and national rights would be mistaken," Abbas said.

Two young men were injured by Israeli occupation army gunfire, this Friday evening, in the village of Zabuba, west of Jenin.

According to local sources, the occupation forces fired bullets at two young men while they were near the separation and apartheid wall erected on village lands, and they were taken to Ibn Sina Hospital.

Today, Friday, the State of Palestine participated in the coordination meeting between the Foreign Ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77 and China, and the Ministerial Conference of the Group of 77 and China, which witnessed the election of Uganda to chair the group for the year 2024.

The State of Palestine was represented at the meeting and ministerial conference, which were held at the United Nations headquarters in New York, by its permanent representative to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Riyad Al-Maliki.

Mansour congratulated Uganda on its election to chair the Group of 77 and China for next year 2024, thanking Cuba for its outstanding performance in chairing the group during the current year 2023.

Mansour stressed the importance of the unity and solidarity of the group’s countries to confront challenges and difficulties in all development and political fields to achieve sustainable development, stressing the rejection of unilateral punitive steps against a number of the group’s member states by specific countries.

He also stressed the necessity of reforming and changing the global economic and financial system that is heavily biased in favor of the countries of the North at the expense of the countries of the South, which constitute the overwhelming majority of the countries of the world.

Mansour appreciated the group's principled solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinian people.

The new operation of the special Israeli undercover (Musta'ribin) units in the Jenin camp, on Tuesday evening, failed to reach the resistance fighter Muhammad Hussein Mustafa Zidan "undercover Al-Baha", whom they accuse of leading the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, despite the surprise attack they launched on his home and family located at the main entrance on the outskirts of the Jenin camp. It took revenge on his family by destroying his house, arresting his elderly father, and threatening to assassinate him if he did not surrender himself, but it was forced to release him from the Jalama checkpoint after he suffered a sudden heart attack.

Under the cover of darkness, the special units chose their date and, as eyewitnesses told Al-Quds.com, infiltrated the entrance to the main camp using three Palestinian vehicles, and stopped a few meters away from the house of the sixty-year-old citizen Hussein Mustafa Ahmed Zidan, claiming that his son, the freed prisoner Muhammad “Abu al-Baha” (35 years old), at the top of the Israeli intelligence wanted list.

When the undercover units were infiltrating the family's home, they were discovered by the residents and the resistance, which sounded sirens and came to confront them, amid violent armed clashes.

During this time, the undercover began attacking Abu al-Baha's house to quickly complete their operation, before the family became aware of what was happening around them, including the siege of their house and the attempt to assassinate their son.

His mother reported to Al-Quds.com that she was surprised by the explosion of the main gate of her house, and the heavily armed undercover soldiers, accompanied by a police dog, stormed in. Within seconds, they turned the house into a military barracks and began searching amid an atmosphere of terror and alert.

She says: "They detained us, and when they did not find Abu Al-Baha, their anger increased, and they became more ferocious and brutal. They destroyed and vandalized everything, threw bombs into the rooms, and released the police dog to search."

She added: "We lived through horrific moments. They threatened to liquidate my son. They destroyed the children's rooms. They sent us a letter threatening to liquidate and execute my son if he did not surrender himself. They arrested my husband despite his illness. They handcuffed him and took him with them for investigation."

Meanwhile, the resistance closed all the alleys and streets of the camp, which turned into a real battlefield with the undercover. Witnesses confirm that the resistance besieged the undercover and they were unable to leave Abu al-Baha’s house and the surrounding area, in light of the ferocity of the resistance, which showered them with bullets and locally manufactured bombs.

Within minutes, the scene changed, and the entire area turned into an arena of violent clashes, so the occupation sent in large military reinforcements.

According to witnesses, more than 80 military patrols raided the city and the outskirts of the camp, and soldiers and snipers occupied buildings and buildings overlooking the Al-Aqwas area at the entrance to the camp and the Al-Zahraa neighborhood in the city. As the clashes intensified, the occupation launched a “Maoz” suicide plane and detonated it in the main square, causing It led to the injury of a number of citizens and the explosion of the main electricity transformer, plunging the camp into complete darkness.

The drones that flew at a low altitude, and dozens of soldiers and snipers who were deployed in the area, were unable to control the situation, as they were subjected to heavy fire, and the military wings of the resistance participated in attacking the soldiers from every nook and corner in clashes that did not stop, while dozens of explosive devices were detonated. Explosive explosives were deployed against occupation patrols, and the occupation admitted that two patrols were directly hit.

Despite the extensive raids and search campaigns under the cover of gunfire in the vicinity of Abu Al-Baha’s house, the occupation spokesman admitted the failure of the operation and the inability of the special units to reach Abu Al-Baha. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades stated in a military communiqué issued during the operation that its leader, Abu Al-Baha, survived the ambush and the assassination attempt. He returned to the positions of its fighters who fought with fighters from other military wings until the last patrol withdrew from Jenin and the camp.

Eyewitnesses told the Al-Quds.com correspondent that they witnessed a real battle between the occupation and the fighters, who attacked the patrols from very close distances, which led to a number of martyrs and a high number of injuries among citizens. During the withdrawal of the patrols from the camp, residents observed resistance groups pursuing them. With canisters and bullets like never before.

Witnesses confirm that the first victim of the Israeli aggression on the camp was the child Raafat Khamaysa (15 years old), who was shot by undercover soldiers at the entrance to the camp, when he discovered them and began screaming and warning of their presence, so they hit him directly.

His uncle, Nizar Khamaysa, told Al-Quds.com: “When Raafat left his grandfather’s house at the entrance to the camp, he saw the undercover besieging Abu Al-Baha’s house, so he ran screaming, and the undercover unit chased him and fired bullets directly at him.”

He added: "Raafat fell to the ground covered in blood. He was hit with a bullet in the middle of the abdomen and exited from his chest. The ambulance crews were unable to reach him, because the occupation closed the area and prevented them from moving. He remained bleeding in his grandfather's house for an hour and a half, and after the occupation withdrew and transferred him." To the hospital, he was declared martyred.”

During the funeral of the bodies of the four martyrs of the aggression, Mahmoud Al-Saadi, Mahmoud Ararawi, Raafat Khamaysa and Atta Musa, the resistance fighter Abu Al-Baha went out with dozens of resistance fighters to participate in the march. He told reporters: “A few moments separated me from the Israeli attack, as they surrounded my house shortly after I left.” When they raided it and did not find me, they destroyed and broke its contents. Not even my children’s rooms and belongings were spared, and they threatened my family to liquidate me if I did not surrender myself.”

Abu Al-Baha, who took up his weapon and was surrounded by a large number of resistance fighters, said: “My response to the occupation’s threats: We are fighting for the freedom of Palestine, our people, and our prisoners, and I will not back down or give myself up. We are determined to follow this path and the path of the martyrs, and we are satisfied with what the Lord of the Worlds chooses for us.” .

He added: "I am not better or better than our martyred heroes who sacrificed for us. My brother was martyred and handed over the banner to me, and my children will continue the journey. We will all one day meet the Lord of the Worlds, so let us meet Him as martyrs."

Abu Al-Baha said: “The battle that Jenin camp witnessed on the evening of the attempt to assassinate or arrest me, and the unity of the unified resistance factions and what it achieved was a victory for the camp. The occupation was defeated in the face of the resistance and the heroism of the resistance. Thanks go to God first, to the martyrs second, and to the lions of the camp who did their duty greatly.”

He added: "The occupation's threats of new operations and massacres in the camp and our assassination will not weaken our resolve. We will remain on the path of the martyrs. The more the aggression intensifies, the more determined we will be to complete the journey. Our choice is martyrdom or the liberation of Jerusalem, and our choice is resistance until the liberation of Palestine and the prisoners."

Regarding the occupation’s continued targeting of the leadership of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Resistance, Abu Al-Baha said: “All of us in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Al-Qassam Brigades, the Jenin Brigades and Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades. There is nothing that divides us. We fight not under one slogan, but rather one blood. We have resolve and determination to stand firm and challenge the occupation, and we affirm that we You will not leave this path, and these threats will not distance us from the path of resistance and the path to Jerusalem, God willing.”