US President meets Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinians protest his visit to occupied lands

News Network
July 15, 2022

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Bethlehem, July 15: US President Joe Biden has met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, as hundreds of people staged a demonstration to express their outright rejection of his visit to the occupied territories on his first Middle East tour as the US president.

The talks between the two sides are expected to focus on economic measures, without striking any major diplomatic breakthrough.

Biden’s arrival in Bethlehem comes ahead of a visit to Saudi Arabia, where he will meet and hold talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other high-profile officials.

Earlier, the US president visited the Augusta Victoria Hospital in the Israeli-occupied East al-Quds, where he announced a multi-million aid package for medical institutions in the area.

“Today I’m pleased to announce the United States is committing an additional $100 million to support these hospitals, your staffs that work for the Palestinian people,” he said.

Biden will also announce measures to upgrade telecoms networks in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to high speed 4G standards by the end of 2023, and other measures to ease travel between the West Bank and neighboring Jordan.

In addition, there will be a separate $201 million funding package provided through the UN relief agency UNRWA to help Palestinian refugees.

Former US president Donald Trump ended nearly all aid to Palestinians three years ago and fully sided with Israel’s positions in the decades-long dispute over a so-called two-state solution.

Palestinians have met Biden’s visit with skepticism, saying their concerns for self-determination and settlement building were ignored in favor of Israel’s regional stability with its Arab neighbors. 

Earlier this week, the secretary general of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement said Joe Biden’s Middle East visit was aimed at promoting the normalization project and getting Saudi leaders to pump new crude supplies into the world oil market, adding that the US president had nothing to offer to the Palestinian people.

“Biden primarily came to persuade the Persian Gulf countries to produce and export more oil and gas,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on the occasion of the outbreak of the 2006 war between Hezbollah and the Israeli regime.

Biden, Nasrallah said, is also in the region to ensure that the United States stands alongside Israel and its project of normalization with the Persian Gulf countries. “He has nothing to offer the Palestinian people.”

Palestinians protest

Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinian activists demonstrated outside the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East al-Quds, as Biden was visiting the medical facility.

The activists hoisted Palestinian flags and black banners, reminding the 79-year-old Palestinian president that the lives of the Palestinian people matter.

Palestinian sources, who asked not to be named, said a large number of Israeli forces were deployed outside the hospital.

Israeli troops later engaged in clashes with Palestinian protesters as they tried to disperse the crowd.

The demonstrators also demanded justice for slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed on May 11 during an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

Last month, the United Nations human rights office said evidence suggested Israeli military fire had killed Abu Akleh while she stood with other reporters and was identifiable as a journalist.

To secure US interests, Israel's security

Separately, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement said Biden's visit to the region is meant to secure the interests of the United States as well as the security of the occupying Tel Aviv regime.

“We, as a Palestinian people and resistance front, must draw lessons and stop cherishing dreams about such a political development,” Ziyad al-Nakhalah said in an exclusive interview with the Arabic-language Palestine Today news agency.

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News Network
October 2,2024

Yemeni Armed Forces have launched a series of attacks on Israeli military positions deep inside the occupied territories, in solidarity with Palestinian and Lebanese people amid the Tel Aviv regime’s ongoing offensives in the Gaza Strip and across Lebanon.

Delivering a televised statement broadcast live from the capital Sana’a on Wednesday morning, Yemen’s military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the country’s missile units had fired three domestically-developed Quds-5 cruise missiles at the strategic installations.

He added that the missiles managed to strike the designated targets precisely, despite the Zionist regime’s attempts to conceal the losses it sustained in the aftermath of the missile attack.

Saree also hailed the Islamic Republic of Iran’s retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation True Promise II, against Israel, stressing that Yemeni Armed Forces are prepared to participate in any joint military operation against the Zionist enemy in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese nations, and in response to Israeli atrocities.

“The continued US and British support for the Israeli enemy will put their interests in the region in jeopardy. Yemeni Armed Forces will not hesitate to expand their military operations against the Zionist enemy and its sponsors until the ongoing aggression against Gaza stops, the siege on the coastal territory is completely lifted, and the attacks on Lebanon come to an end,” he pointed out.

Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they will not stop their attacks until unrelenting Israeli ground and aerial offensives in Gaza end.

So far, Israel has killed at least 41,638 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 96,460 others in Gaza.

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News Network
October 8,2024

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A Palestinian prisoners’ rights group says Israeli forces have abducted a total of 108 journalists during violent raids across the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip ever since the regime’s onslaught on the besieged coastal territory started more than a year ago.

The Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which is also known as Addameer, said in a statement on Monday that at least 58 journalists remain in Israeli custody, including six female journalists and 22 journalists from Gaza whose identities have been confirmed.

Addameer added that at least 16 of the journalists are being held under administrative detention.

An overwhelming majority of Palestinian prisoners are arrested under a quasi-judicial process known as administrative detention, under which Palestinians are initially jailed for six months. Their detentions can then be repeatedly extended for an indefinite period without charge or trial.

Neither the administrative detainees, who include women and children, nor their lawyers are allowed to see the “secret evidence” that Israeli forces say form the basis for their arrests.

Addameer noted that more than 9,000 orders of administrative detention have been issued since October 7 last year, ranging between new orders and renewals, including orders against children and women.

The report comes as another Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, bringing the total death toll of journalists killed since October 7 last year to 175.

The government media office in the Gaza Strip in a statement identified the victim as Hassan Hamad, without giving details about the circumstances of his death.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation,” it said.

The media office also called on the international community and international organizations to “deter the occupation and prosecute it in international courts for its ongoing crimes.”

Journalists operating in the Palestinian territory are faced with increased dangers as they report on the conflict amidst Israeli ground assaults and airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and power outages.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 last year, after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.

So far, the Israeli war on Gaza has killed at least 41,909 Palestinians, most of them women, children, and adolescents, and injured 97,303 others.

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News Network
October 8,2024

palestinejourno.jpg

A Palestinian prisoners’ rights group says Israeli forces have abducted a total of 108 journalists during violent raids across the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip ever since the regime’s onslaught on the besieged coastal territory started more than a year ago.

The Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which is also known as Addameer, said in a statement on Monday that at least 58 journalists remain in Israeli custody, including six female journalists and 22 journalists from Gaza whose identities have been confirmed.

Addameer added that at least 16 of the journalists are being held under administrative detention.

An overwhelming majority of Palestinian prisoners are arrested under a quasi-judicial process known as administrative detention, under which Palestinians are initially jailed for six months. Their detentions can then be repeatedly extended for an indefinite period without charge or trial.

Neither the administrative detainees, who include women and children, nor their lawyers are allowed to see the “secret evidence” that Israeli forces say form the basis for their arrests.

Addameer noted that more than 9,000 orders of administrative detention have been issued since October 7 last year, ranging between new orders and renewals, including orders against children and women.

The report comes as another Palestinian journalist was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, bringing the total death toll of journalists killed since October 7 last year to 175.

The government media office in the Gaza Strip in a statement identified the victim as Hassan Hamad, without giving details about the circumstances of his death.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation,” it said.

The media office also called on the international community and international organizations to “deter the occupation and prosecute it in international courts for its ongoing crimes.”

Journalists operating in the Palestinian territory are faced with increased dangers as they report on the conflict amidst Israeli ground assaults and airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and power outages.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 last year, after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.

So far, the Israeli war on Gaza has killed at least 41,909 Palestinians, most of them women, children, and adolescents, and injured 97,303 others.

Comments

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