Iraqi armed groups dial down US attacks on request of Iran commander

Iraqi armed groups dial down US attacks on request of Iran commander
Kataib Hezbollah Iraqi militia display the picture of the Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani as they gather ahead of the funeral of the Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed in an air strike at Baghdad airport on January 4, 2020. (REUTERS)
Short Url
Updated 19 February 2024
Follow

Iraqi armed groups dial down US attacks on request of Iran commander

Iraqi armed groups dial down US attacks on request of Iran commander
  • Lull allowed talks to resume over the future of US troops in Iraq
  • Fearing escalation, Iraq asked Iran to help rein in groups

BAGHDAD: A visit by the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force to Baghdad has led to a pause in attacks on US troops by Iran-aligned groups in Iraq, multiple Iranian and Iraqi sources told Reuters, saying it was a sign Tehran wants to prevent a broader conflict.

Esmail Qaani met representatives of several of the armed groups in Baghdad airport on Jan. 29, less than 48 hours after Washington blamed the groups for the killing of three US soldiers at the Tower 22 outpost in Jordan, the sources said.
Qaani, whose predecessor was killed by a US drone near the same airport four years ago, told the factions that drawing American blood risked a heavy US response, 10 of the sources said.
He said the militias should lie low, to avoid US strikes on their senior commanders, destruction of key infrastructure, or even a direct retaliation against Iran, the sources said.
While one faction did not initially agree to Qaani’s request, most others did. The next day, the elite Iran-backed group Kataib Hezbollah announced it was suspending attacks.
Since Feb. 4 there have been no attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, compared to more than 20 in the two weeks before Qaani’s visit, part of a surge in violence from the groups in opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.
“Without Qaani’s direct intervention it would have been impossible to convince Kataib Hezbollah to halt its military operations to de-escalate the tension,” a senior commander in one of the Iran-aligned Iraqi armed groups said.
Qaani and the Quds Force, the arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that works with allied armed groups from Lebanon to Yemen, did not immediately reply to requests for comment for this story. Kataib Hezbollah and one other group could not be reached for comment. The US White House and Pentagon also did not immediately respond.
Qaani’s visit has been mentioned in Iraqi media but the details of his message and the impact on reducing attacks have not been previously reported.
For this account, Reuters talked to three Iranian officials, a senior Iraqi security official, three Iraqi Shiite politicians, four sources in Iran-backed Iraqi armed groups and four Iraq-focused diplomats.

Iraq-US talks resume
The apparent success of the visit highlights the influence Iran wields with Iraqi armed groups, who alternate between building pressure and cooling tensions to further their goal of pushing US forces out of Iraq.
The government in Baghdad, a rare ally of both Tehran and Washington, is trying to prevent the country again becoming a battlefield for foreign powers and asked Iran to help rein in the groups after the Jordan attack, five of the sources said.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani “has worked with all relevant parties both inside and outside Iraq, warning them,” that escalation “will destabilize Iraq and the region,” Sudani’s foreign affairs adviser Farhad Alaadin told Reuters when asked to confirm Qaani’s visit and the request for help to rein in armed groups.
The attack “played into the hand of the Iraqi government.” a Shiite politician from the ruling coalition said. Following the subsequent lull in hostilities, on Feb. 6 talks resumed with the United States about ending the US presence in Iraq.
Several Iran-aligned parties and armed groups in Iraq also prefer talks rather than attacks to end the US troop presence. Washington has been unwilling to negotiate a change to its military posture under fire, concerned it would embolden Iran.
The United States currently has some 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria on an advise and assist mission. They are part of an international coalition deployed in 2014 to fight Islamic State, mainly in the west of the country and eastern Syria.
A US State Department spokesperson, who declined to comment on Qaani’s visit to Baghdad, said the US presence in Iraq would transition to “an enduring bilateral security relationship.”
The United States asserts that Iran has a high level of control over what it calls Iranian “proxies” in the region. Tehran says it has funded, advised and trained allies but they decide on operations on their own.
Another US official recognized Iran’s role in reducing attacks but said it was not clear if the lull would hold.
“We need to see more work done on the ground,” by Iraq to control the militias, a separate, senior, US official said, noting just a few arrests were made after a December mortar attack on the US embassy in Baghdad.

Airport security
With Iran bracing for a US response to the Jordan attack, Qaani made the visit quick and did not leave the airport, “for strict security reasons and fearing for his safety,” the senior Iraqi security source said.
The strike in 2020 that killed former Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani outside the airport followed an attack Washington also blamed on Kataib Hezbollah that killed a US contractor, and at the time sparked fears of a regional war. Along with Soleimani, the drone killed former Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis.
Both Tehran and Baghdad wanted to avoid a similar escalation this time around, nine sources said.
“The Iranians learned their lesson from the liquidation of Soleimani and did not want this to be repeated,” the senior Iraqi security source said.
A high-ranking Iranian security official said: “Commander Qaani’s visit was successful, though not entirely, as not all Iraqi groups consented to de-escalate.” One smaller but very active group, Nujaba, said it would continue attacks, arguing that US forces would only leave by force.
It remains to be seen how long the pause holds. An umbrella group representing hard-line factions vowed to resume operations in the wake of the US killing of senior Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Baqir Al-Saadi in Baghdad on Feb. 7.
Saadi was also a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a state security agency that started out as mostly Shiite armed groups close to Iran that fought against Islamic State, highlighting just how intertwined the Iran-backed armed groups are with the Iraqi state.
US-led forces invaded Iraq and toppled former leader Saddam Hussein in 2003, before withdrawing in 2011.
Shiite armed groups who spent years attacking US forces in the wake of the 2003 invasion went on to fight on the same side as, though not in direct partnership with, US soldiers against Islamic State until it was territorially defeated.
In the subsequent years, rounds of tit-for-tat fighting with the remaining US troops escalated until the US killing of Soleimani and Muhandis.
Those killings prompted Iraq’s parliament to vote for the exit of foreign forces. Prime Minister Sudani’s government came to power in October 2022 on a promise to implement that decision, though it was not seen as a priority, government officials have said.
The situation changed again with the onset of the Gaza war.
Dozens of attacks and several rounds of US responses, including the killing of a senior Nujaba leader in Baghdad on Jan. 5, led Sudani to declare that the coalition had become a magnet for instability and to initiate talks for its end.
He has kept the door open to continued US presence in a different format via a bilateral deal.
Iraqi officials have said they hope the current lull will hold so the talks, expected to take months if not longer, can reach a conclusion.
At a funeral service for Saadi, senior Kataib Hezbollah official and PMF military chief Abdul Aziz Al-Mohammedawi vowed a response for the latest killing, but stopped short of announcing a return to violence. The response would be based on consensus, he said, including with the government.
“Revenge for the martyr Abu Baqir Al-Saadi means the exit of all foreign forces from Iraq. We won't accept anything less than that,” he said.


US aid freeze worsening Syria camp conditions: HRW

Updated 20 sec ago
Follow

US aid freeze worsening Syria camp conditions: HRW

US aid freeze worsening Syria camp conditions: HRW
  • On January 24, four days after US President Donald Trump returned to power, NGOs linked to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) received a letter asking them to cease all activities
Beirut: Human Rights Watch warned Friday that US aid suspensions could worsen “life-threatening conditions” in camps holding relatives of suspected Daesh terrorists in northeast Syria, urging Washington to maintain support.
Kurdish-run camps and prisons in the region still hold around 56,000 people with alleged or perceived links to the Daesh group, years after the jihadists’ territorial defeat.
They include jihadist suspects locked up in prisons, as well as the wives and children of IS fighters held in the Al-Hol and Roj internment camps.
“The US government’s suspension of foreign aid to non-governmental organizations operating in these camps is exacerbating life-threatening conditions, risking further destabilization of a precarious security situation,” HRW said in a statement.
The rights group said the aid freeze could “limit provision of essential services for camp residents,” citing international humanitarian workers.
On January 24, four days after US President Donald Trump returned to power, NGOs linked to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) received a first letter asking them to cease all activities funded by the agency.
A week later, another letter, seen by AFP, authorized them to resume certain missions intended for “life-saving humanitarian assistance.”
The orders have left aid groups in the northeast “unsure how to proceed with deliveries of essential goods, like kerosene and water, further exacerbating pre-existing shortages,” the statement said.
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio should continue US assistance to organizations providing essential lifesaving assistance in northeast Syria,” the group said.
Following the January 24 order, HRW said Blumont, an organization responsible for camp management in Al Hol and Roj, suspended activities and withdrew all staff, including guards.
A few days later, the group received a two-week exemption allowing it to work.
Al-Hol is northeast Syria’s largest internment camp, with more than 40,000 detainees from 47 countries.
The vast majority of Al-Hol and Roj residents are women and children living in dire conditions.
HRW also said that “any political settlement in the region should include ending the arbitrary detention of those with alleged Daesh ties and their families.”
“Thousands of lives, many of them children, are hanging in the balance, and the indefensible status quo of the last six years should not be allowed to continue,” said Hiba Zayadin of Human Rights Watch.
The call comes amid talks between Syria’s new authorities and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) over the group’s future and as clashes rage in the north between the Kurdish-led group and Turkish-backed factions.

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over
Updated 07 February 2025
Follow

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over
  • Trump has said he aims to take over and develop the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East”
  • Proposal comes just as Israel and Hamas expected to begin talks on second stage of ceasefire deal 

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday Israel would hand over Gaza to the United States after fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no US troops would be needed on the ground.
A day after worldwide condemnation of Trump’s announcement that he aimed to take over and develop the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” Israel ordered its army to prepare to allow the “voluntary departure” of Gaza Palestinians.
Trump, who had previously declined to rule out deploying US troops to the small coastal territory, clarified his idea in comments on his Truth Social web platform.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he said. Palestinians “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” He added: “No soldiers by the US would be needed!“
Earlier, amid a tide of support in Israel for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump’s “remarkable” proposal, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the army to prepare a plan to allow Gaza residents who wished to leave to exit the enclave voluntarily.
“I welcome President Trump’s bold plan. Gaza residents should be allowed the freedom to leave and emigrate, as is the norm around the world,” Katz said on X.
He said his plan would include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.
Trump, a real-estate-developer-turned-politician, sparked anger around the Middle East with his unexpected announcement on Tuesday, just as Israel and Hamas were expected to begin talks in Doha on the second stage of a ceasefire deal for Gaza, intended to open the way for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces, a further release of hostages and an end to a nearly 16-month-old war.

Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia rebuffed the proposal outright and Jordan’s King Abdullah, who will meet Trump at the White House next week, said on Wednesday he rejected any attempts to annex land and displace Palestinians.
Egypt also weighed in, saying it would not be part of any proposal to displace Palestinians from neighboring Gaza, where residents reacted with fury to the suggestion.
“We will not sell our land for you, real estate developer. We are hungry, homeless, and desperate but we are not collaborators,” said Abdel Ghani, a father of four living with his family in the ruins of their Gaza City home. “If (Trump) wants to help, let him come and rebuild for us here.”
It was unclear whether Trump would go ahead with his proposal or, in keeping with his self-image as a shrewd dealmaker, has simply laid out an extreme position as a bargaining tactic. His first term in 2017-21 was replete with what critics said were over-the-top foreign policy pronouncements, many of which were never implemented.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday that people would have to live elsewhere while Gaza was rebuilt. He did not say whether they would be able to return under Trump’s plan to develop the enclave, home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
Axios reported Rubio planned to visit the Middle East in mid-February with an itinerary that includes Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Displacement
What effect Trump’s shock proposal may have on the ceasefire talks remains unclear. Only 13 of a group of 33 Israeli hostages due for release in the first phase have so far been returned, with three more due to come out on Saturday. Five Thai hostages have also been released.
Hamas official Basem Naim accused Israel’s defense minister of trying to cover up “for a state that has failed to achieve any of its objectives in the war on Gaza,” and said Palestinians are too attached to their land to ever leave.
Displacement of Palestinians has been one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East for decades. Forced or coerced displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime, banned under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

Details of how any such plan might work have been vague. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said different thinking was needed on Gaza’s future but that any departures would have to be voluntary and states would have to be willing to take them.
“We don’t have details yet, but we can talk about principles,” Saar told a press conference with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani. “Everything must be based on the free will of (the) individual and, on the other hand, of a will of a state that is ready to absorb,” he said.
A number of far-right Israeli politicians have openly called for Palestinians to be moved from Gaza and there was strong support for Trump’s push among both security hawks and the Jewish settler movement, which wants to reclaim land in Gaza used for Jewish settlements until 2005.
Giora Eiland, an Israeli former general who attracted wide attention in an earlier stage of the war with his “Generals’ Plan” for a forced displacement of people from northern Gaza, said Trump’s plan was logical and aid should not be allowed to reach displaced people returning to northern Gaza.
Israel’s military campaign has killed tens of thousands of people since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, cross-border attack on Israel touched off the war, and has forced Palestinians to repeatedly move around within Gaza in search of safety.
But many say they will never leave the enclave because they fear permanent displacement, like the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed from homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.
Katz said countries that have opposed Israel’s military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians.
“Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories,” he said.


Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say

Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say
Updated 07 February 2025
Follow

Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say

Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say
  • 19 bodies — believed to be related to smuggling activites — were discovered in a mass grave in a farm some 441 km from Benghazi, say police
  • Libya's Red Crescent said the bodies of 10 other migrants were recovered after their boat sank off Dila port in the city of Zawiya, near Tripoli

BENGHAZI, Libya: At least 29 bodies of migrants have been recovered in two locations in the southeast and west of Libya, a security directorate and the Libyan Red Crescent said on Thursday.
The Alwahat district Security Directorate said in a statement that 19 bodies were discovered in a mass grave in a farm in Jikharra area, some 441 km from Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and said the deaths were related to smuggling activites.
The directorate posted on Facebook pictures showing police officers and Jalu Red Crescent volunteers placing the bodies in black plastic bags.
Separately, the Libyan Red Crescent said on Facebook late Thursday evening that its volunteers recovered the bodies of 10 migrants earlier in the day after their boat sank off Dila port in the city of Zawiya, some 40 km from Tripoli, the capital.
The Red Crescent posted pictures showing volunteers on the dockside placing bodies in white plastic bags, while one volunteer put numbers on one of the bags.
"In the presence of the Public Prosecution Office in Jalu, the directorate was able to recover 19 bodies resulting from smuggling and illegal migration activities in Jikharra area, belonging to a known smuggling network," the directorate said.
It said the bodies were found in a total of three graves on the farm, with one grave holding one body, a second grave holding four bodies, and the remaining 14 bodies found in the third grave.
"The bodies were all referred to a forensic doctor to conduct the necessary tests," the directorate said.
Libya has turned into a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean.
At the end of January, Alwahat Criminal Investigation Department said it had freed 263 migrants from different Sub-Saharan nationalities, saying they were "being held by a smuggling gang in extremely poor human and health conditions."


Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity

Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity
Updated 07 February 2025
Follow

Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity

Syria’s ‘Caesar’ whistleblower unveils identity
  • First Lt. Farid Al-Madhan was the former head of the forensic evidence department at the military police in Damascus

BEIRUT: A Syrian whistleblower, who smuggled tens of thousands of pictures depicting torture under Bashar Assad, on Thursday revealed his identity for the first time, two months after the longtime ruler was toppled.
“I am First Lt. Farid Al-Madhan, the (former) head of the forensic evidence department at the military police in Damascus, known as Caesar,” he said in a televised interview with Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera.
Identified at the time only as a Syrian military photographer under the pseudonym Caesar, he had fled the country in 2013, taking with him some 55,000 graphic images taken between 2011 and 2013.
Describing himself during the interview as a “son of a free Syria,” he said he was from the city of Daraa, “the cradle of the Syrian revolution.”
Following the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests, he said he was tasked with “taking pictures of victims of detention.”
These included “old men, women and children, who were detained at security checkpoints in Damascus, and from protest squares that called for freedom and dignity,” said Madhan, who added that he currently resides in France.
“They were detained, tortured and killed in bloody, systematic ways and their bodies were transferred to military morgues to be photographed and taken to mass graves,” he continued.
He said he postponed his defection from the government forces and fleeing the country in order to be able to “collect the largest number of pictures documenting and incriminating the Syrian regime apparatuses of committing crimes against humanity.”
He said the pictures were smuggled in a flash drive that he sometimes hid in his socks or a bundle of bread to escape government security checkpoints or those of the opposition.
The photos, authenticated by experts, show corpses tortured and starved to death in Syrian prisons.
Some people had their eyes gouged out. The photos showed emaciated bodies, people with wounds on the back or stomach, and also a picture of hundreds of corpses in a shed surrounded by plastic bags used for burials.
Assad’s government said only that the pictures were “political.”
But Caesar testified to a US Congress committee and his photographs inspired a 2020 US law which imposed economic sanctions on Syria and judicial proceedings in Europe against Assad’s entourage.
Germany, the Netherlands and France have since 2022 convicted several top officials from the Syrian intelligence service and militias.


Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over
Updated 07 February 2025
Follow

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over

Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over
  • No American troops would be needed on the ground, the US president wrote his Truth Social web platform
  • Israel’s defense chief suggests Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others opposed to military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians
  • Trump’s top diplomat said that people would have to live elsewhere while Gaza was being rebuilt

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday Israel would hand over Gaza to the United States after fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no US troops would be needed on the ground.
A day after worldwide condemnation of Trump’s announcement that he aimed to take over and develop the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” Israel ordered its army to prepare to allow the “voluntary departure” of Gaza Palestinians.
Trump, who had previously declined to rule out deploying US troops to the small coastal territory, clarified his idea in comments on his Truth Social web platform.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he said. Palestinians “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” He added: “No soldiers by the US would be needed!“
Earlier, amid a tide of support in Israel for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump’s “remarkable” proposal, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the army to prepare a plan to allow Gaza residents who wished to leave to exit the enclave voluntarily.
“I welcome President Trump’s bold plan. Gaza residents should be allowed the freedom to leave and emigrate, as is the norm around the world,” Katz said on X.
He said his plan would include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.
Trump, a real-estate-developer-turned-politician, sparked anger around the Middle East with his unexpected announcement on Tuesday, just as Israel and Hamas were expected to begin talks in Doha on the second stage of a ceasefire deal for Gaza, intended to open the way for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces, a further release of hostages and an end to a nearly 16-month-old war.

 

Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia rebuffed the proposal outright and Jordan’s King Abdullah, who will meet Trump at the White House next week, said on Wednesday he rejected any attempts to annex land and displace Palestinians.
Egypt also weighed in, saying it would not be part of any proposal to displace Palestinians from neighboring Gaza, where residents reacted with fury to the suggestion.
“We will not sell our land for you, real estate developer. We are hungry, homeless, and desperate but we are not collaborators,” said Abdel Ghani, a father of four living with his family in the ruins of their Gaza City home. “If (Trump) wants to help, let him come and rebuild for us here.”
It was unclear whether Trump would go ahead with his proposal or, in keeping with his self-image as a shrewd dealmaker, has simply laid out an extreme position as a bargaining tactic. His first term in 2017-21 was replete with what critics said were over-the-top foreign policy pronouncements, many of which were never implemented.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday that people would have to live elsewhere while Gaza was rebuilt. He did not say whether they would be able to return under Trump’s plan to develop the enclave, home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
Axios reported Rubio planned to visit the Middle East in mid-February with an itinerary that includes Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Displacement
What effect Trump’s shock proposal may have on the ceasefire talks remains unclear. Only 13 of a group of 33 Israeli hostages due for release in the first phase have so far been returned, with three more due to come out on Saturday. Five Thai hostages have also been released.
Hamas official Basem Naim accused Israel’s defense minister of trying to cover up “for a state that has failed to achieve any of its objectives in the war on Gaza,” and said Palestinians are too attached to their land to ever leave.
Displacement of Palestinians has been one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East for decades. Forced or coerced displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime, banned under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

 

Details of how any such plan might work have been vague. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said different thinking was needed on Gaza’s future but that any departures would have to be voluntary and states would have to be willing to take them.
“We don’t have details yet, but we can talk about principles,” Saar told a press conference with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani. “Everything must be based on the free will of (the) individual and, on the other hand, of a will of a state that is ready to absorb,” he said.
A number of far-right Israeli politicians have openly called for Palestinians to be moved from Gaza and there was strong support for Trump’s push among both security hawks and the Jewish settler movement, which wants to reclaim land in Gaza used for Jewish settlements until 2005.
Giora Eiland, an Israeli former general who attracted wide attention in an earlier stage of the war with his “Generals’ Plan” for a forced displacement of people from northern Gaza, said Trump’s plan was logical and aid should not be allowed to reach displaced people returning to northern Gaza.
Israel’s military campaign has killed tens of thousands of people since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, cross-border attack on Israel touched off the war, and has forced Palestinians to repeatedly move around within Gaza in search of safety.
But many say they will never leave the enclave because they fear permanent displacement, like the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed from homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.
Katz said countries that have opposed Israel’s military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians.
“Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories,” he said.