Israel’s Netanyahu presents first official post-Gaza war plan

Israel’s Netanyahu presents first official post-Gaza war plan
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (AFP)
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Updated 23 February 2024
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Israel’s Netanyahu presents first official post-Gaza war plan

Israel’s Netanyahu presents first official post-Gaza war plan
  • Netanayhu rejects the “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state
  • Replace Hamas rule in Gaza while maintaining public order

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has presented a “day after” plan for Gaza, his first official proposal for when the war in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory ends.
According to the document, presented to members of Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday and seen by Reuters on Friday, Israel would maintain security control over all land west of Jordan, including the occupied West Bank and Gaza — territories where the Palestinians want to create an independent state.
In the long-term goals listed, Netanayhu rejects the “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state. He says a settlement with the Palestinians will only be achieved through direct negotiations between the two sides — but it did not name who the Palestinian party would be.
In Gaza, Netanyahu outlines demilitarization and deradicalization as goals to be achieved in the medium term. He does not elaborate on when that intermediary stage would begin or how long it would last. But he conditions the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip, much of which has been laid to waste by Israel’s offensive, on its complete demilitarization.
Netanyahu proposes Israel have a presence on the Gaza-Egypt border in the south of the enclave and cooperates with Egypt and the United States in that area to prevent smuggling attempts, including at the Rafah crossing.
To replace Hamas rule in Gaza while maintaining public order, Netanyahu suggests working with local representatives “who are not affiliated with terrorist countries or groups and are not financially supported by them.”
He calls for shutting down the UN Palestinian refugees agency UNRWA and replacing it with other international aid groups.
“The prime minister’s document of principles reflects broad public consensus over the goals of the war and for replacing Hamas rule in Gaza with a civilian alternative,” a statement by the Prime Minister’s office said.
The document was distributed to security cabinet members to start a discussion on the issue.
The war was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli counts.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has responded with an air and ground assault on blockaded Gaza that has killed more than 29,400 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. The offensive has displaced most of the territory’s population and caused widespread hunger and disease.
The spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, told Reuters that Netanyahu’s proposal was doomed to fail, as were any Israeli plans to change the geographic and demographic realities in Gaza.
“If the world is genuinely interested in having security and stability in the region, it must end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and recognize an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” he said.
The war in Gaza has revived international calls — including Israel’s main backer the United States — for the so-called two-state solution as the ultimate goal for resolving the decades long Israel-Palestinian conflict. However, a number of senior Israeli politicians oppose this.
The two-state solution has long been a core Western policy in the region but little progress has been made on achieving Palestinian statehood since the signing of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s.


Trump says he would take hard stance on Gaza on Saturday

Trump says he would take hard stance on Gaza on Saturday
Updated 29 sec ago
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Trump says he would take hard stance on Gaza on Saturday

Trump says he would take hard stance on Gaza on Saturday
  • “Beyond the emotional burden and difficult experiences he faced in captivity, he had to bear this horrible loss on the first day that he left from there,” his brother told Israeli Army Radio

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would take a hard stance on Saturday on Gaza, the Palestinian enclave for which he has proposed a US takeover and where a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants is in place.
 

 


Top commander with UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is injured by protesters

Top commander with UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is injured by protesters
Updated 53 min 17 sec ago
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Top commander with UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is injured by protesters

Top commander with UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon is injured by protesters
  • “We are shocked by this outrageous attack on peacekeepers who have been serving to restore security and stability to south Lebanon during a difficult time,” it said
  • The Lebanese army intervened to disperse the protesters

BEIRUT: The outgoing deputy commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon was injured Friday when protesters attacked a convoy taking peacekeepers to the Beirut airport, the force known as UNIFIL said in a statement.
“We are shocked by this outrageous attack on peacekeepers who have been serving to restore security and stability to south Lebanon during a difficult time,” it said.
The Lebanese army intervened to disperse the protesters. The army said in a statement that acting commander Maj. Gen. Hassan Odeh had contacted UNIFIL and promised to “work to arrest the citizens who attacked its members and bring them to justice.”
Demonstrators have been blocking the road to the airport and other roads in the capital to protest a decision by Lebanese authorities to revoke permission for a passenger plane from Iran to fly to Beirut on Thursday, leaving dozens of Lebanese passengers stranded.
The decision to ban the Iranian plane came after the Israeli army issued a statement claiming that Iran was smuggling cash to the militant group Hezbollah via civilian flights.
Lebanon’s civil aviation agency said Thursday that “additional security measures” meant some flights were temporarily rescheduled until Feb. 18 — the same day as a deadline for Israel and Hezbollah to fully implement their ceasefire agreement, including a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon.


Syria receives local currency printed in Russia before Assad’s fall

A view of the Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (REUTERS)
A view of the Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (REUTERS)
Updated 14 February 2025
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Syria receives local currency printed in Russia before Assad’s fall

A view of the Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (REUTERS)
  • Syria has been facing a liquidity crunch since Assad’s ouster, with Syria’s new central bank governor, Maysaa Sabreen, saying in January that she wanted to avoid printing Syrian pounds to guard against a surge in inflation

DAMASCUS: Syria’s central bank said a batch of Syrian currency had arrived at Damascus airport from Russia, where banknotes were printed under the rule of toppled President Bashar Assad, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported on Friday.
The central bank did not specify the amount of currency that had arrived, but a source with knowledge of the matter said it was in the “hundreds of billions of Syrian pounds,” equivalent to tens of millions of US dollars.
The source said the cash had been printed in Russia under Assad’s rule but had not been shipped to Syria by the time he was toppled in early December 2024.
Syria’s new leadership ordered the Russian company printing the currency to stop after Assad fled to Moscow, the source said, without providing details on what prompted Friday’s delivery of the previously printed cash.

BACKGROUND

A source said the cash had been printed in Russia under Bashar Assad’s rule but had not been shipped to Syria by the time he was toppled in early December 2024.

Syria has been facing a liquidity crunch since Assad’s ouster, with Syria’s new central bank governor, Maysaa Sabreen, saying in January that she wanted to avoid printing Syrian pounds to guard against a surge in inflation.
Syria’s pound has strengthened on the black market since the new leadership took over, helped by an influx of Syrians from abroad and an end to strict controls on trade in foreign currencies.
It traded 9,850 pounds to the US dollar on Thursday, according to exchange houses closed on Friday.
According to statements by the central bank, the official foreign exchange rate has stayed around 13,000 pounds to the US dollar.
But that has sparked concerns about liquidity in Syrian pounds.
The central bank only has foreign exchange reserves of around $200 million in cash, sources said, a considerable drop from the $18.5 billion that the International Monetary Fund estimated Syria had in 2010, a year before civil war erupted.
Russia is hoping to retain the use of naval and air bases in Syria under its new leaders.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with Syria’s President Ahmad Al-Sharaa on Wednesday, the first call between the two leaders since Assad’s ouster.
The Syrian presidency said Putin had invited Syria’s new foreign minister to visit Moscow.

 


Gazans return to ruined homes and severe water shortage

Gazans return to ruined homes and severe water shortage
Updated 14 February 2025
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Gazans return to ruined homes and severe water shortage

Gazans return to ruined homes and severe water shortage
  • Wells, pumps destroyed during the war
  • Israel claims it has repaired some damage

BEIT LAHIYA: A ceasefire has enabled some Gazans to go back to their ruined homes without fear of Israeli airstrikes, but they have returned to a severe water crisis.

“We returned here and found no pumps, no wells. We did not find buildings or houses,” said 50-year-old farmer Bassel Rajab, a resident of the northern town of Beit Lahiya.
“We came and set up tents to shelter in, but there is no water. We don’t have water. We are suffering.”
Drinking, cooking, and washing are a luxury in Gaza, 16 months after the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Rajab said he sometimes walks 16 km, hoping to shower in Gaza City. Some Palestinians have dug wells in areas near the sea or rely on salty tap water from Gaza’s only aquifer, contaminated with seawater and sewage.
The Palestinian Water Authority estimates it will cost $2.7 billion to repair the water and sanitation sectors. Palestinians were already facing a severe water crisis as well as shortages of food, fuel,  and medicine before the wells were destroyed in the war.
The Palestinian Water Authority said in a statement on its website that 208 out of 306 wells had been knocked out of service during the war, and a further 39 were partially out of service.
“There is a big shortage as the occupation (Israel) is preventing the entrance (into Gaza) of drills, excavators, machines, equipment, and generators that are needed to operate wells and to dig them,” said Beit Lahiya Mayor Alaa Al-Attar.
Attar said small companies were trying to fix the wells but had minimal equipment.
He added: “We are trying to establish new wells to mitigate the severity of the water crisis at this stage.”
COGAT, the branch of the Israeli military that manages humanitarian activities, has said it has coordinated water line repairs with international organizations, including one to the northern Gaza Strip.
The Hamas-Israel ceasefire has been in force since Jan. 19.
Gazans hoping to one day rebuild are squeezed by shortages of water, food, medicines, and fuel in Gaza, which was grappling with poverty and high unemployment even before the war erupted.
Youssef Kallab, 35, says he has to carry heavy water containers to the roof of his home using a rope. The municipality supplies water every three days.
“We do not have the strength to carry it up and down the stairs. We have children, we have elderly. They all want water,” Kallab said as he lifted water containers.
Twelve-year-old Mohammed Al-Khatib says he has to drag a cart for 3-4 km to get water.
Mohammed Nassar, a 47-year-old Palestinian supermarket owner, said he has to walk for miles to fill buckets from a water pipe despite health problems and cartilage damage.
“We turn a blind eye to the pain because we have to,” he said.

 


Tunisian startup takes on e-waste challenge

Tunisian startup takes on e-waste challenge
Updated 14 February 2025
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Tunisian startup takes on e-waste challenge

Tunisian startup takes on e-waste challenge
  • The aim is to have “an environmental and social impact, but also an economic gain,” Cheriha said, adding that refurbished products can be up to 60 percent cheaper in a country where the average monthly salary is around 1,000 dinars ($310)

TUNIS: Engineer turned social entrepreneur Sabri Cheriha hunches over a washing machine at a small depot in a suburb of Tunisia’s capital, the unassuming home of a startup he launched to tackle the country’s mounting electronic waste problem.
Cheriha said there were about 8 million household appliances and 9 million cell phones in use across Tunisia, but once these devices break down or are replaced, “there’s no service to dispose of them properly.”
WeFix, the startup that won him a second-place regional social entrepreneur award last year, stands out by offering an “all-in-one service,” providing collection, repairs, and recycling to reduce e-waste.
The aim is to have “an environmental and social impact, but also an economic gain,” Cheriha said, adding that refurbished products can be up to 60 percent cheaper in a country where the average monthly salary is around 1,000 dinars ($310).
The startup “avoided” 20 tonnes of waste in 2023 and 80 tonnes last year, according to its founder, who anticipates handling another 120 tonnes this year.
“When we talk about ‘avoided waste,’ we’re also considering the resources needed to manufacture a single washing machine — 50 or 60 kg of finished product require over a tonne of raw materials,” he explained.