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Russia Seeks to Unify Palestinian Factions, Including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, at Forthcoming Moscow Parley
Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov with Hamas leaders Moussa Abu Marzouk (r) and Bassem Naim (l) in Moscow. Photo: Reuters/Handout
Russia will seek to unify the various Palestinian factions at a special meeting in Moscow next week, one of Moscow’s top diplomats confirmed on Monday.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, told pro-regime media outlets that “all Palestinian representatives who are located in different countries, in particular in Syria and Lebanon, other countries in the region,” had received invitations to the meeting in Moscow, which convenes on Feb 26. At the same time, Bogdanov stressed that President Vladimir Putin’s regime continues to regard the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — the main power in the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) — as “the sole legal representative of the Palestinian people.”
The invitation has been extended to up to 14 Palestinian factions, according to Russian media sources, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of whom are sworn to Israel’s violent elimination.
Bogdanov’s statement came as the PA’s Prime Minister, Muhammad Shtayyeh, urged Hamas to attend the talks in Moscow.
“We are ready to engage. If Hamas is not then that’s a different story. We need Palestinian unity,” Syhtayyeh declared in remarks at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend. Asked about the desirability of unifying with an organization designated as a terrorist group by the US, EU and other democracies, which is responsible for the atrocities carried out in southern Israel on Oct, 7, Shytayyeh dismissively responded, “One should not continue focusing on October 7.”
Since the Hamas pogrom, Russia has attempted to bolster its influence among the various Palestinian groups. On Oct. 26, it hosted a Hamas delegation led by Musa Abu Marzouk, a member of its politburo who received the status of “Specially Designated Terrorist” from the US Treasury Department in 1995.
More recently, Russia has criticized the decision of a slew of western governments to suspend aid to UNRWA, the UN refugee agency exclusively dedicated to the Palestinians, on the grounds that several of its employees had colluded with Hamas.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced the decision as “collective punishment” while Putin himself spoke of the world’s “sacred duty” to aid Palestinians in Gaza at a recent press conference.
Russia’s latest intervention in the conflict between Hamas and Israel has been overshadowed by western fury over the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Saturday while in custody at a penal colony in Kharp, a remote region close to the Arctic circle.
On Monday, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, expressly accused Putin of orchestrating her husband’s assassination, promising to release further details soon. Separately, the US is considering additional sanctions against Russia over Navalny, whose body has not yet been released, while the EU declared that it would “spare no efforts to hold Russia’s political leadership and authorities to account, in close coordination with our partners; and impose further costs for their actions, including through sanctions.”
The post Russia Seeks to Unify Palestinian Factions, Including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, at Forthcoming Moscow Parley first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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