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Biden Threatens US Policy Change Toward Gaza in Warning to Netanyahu
US President Joe Biden, left, pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: Miriam Alster/Pool via REUTERS
The United States on Thursday issued its toughest public rebuke of Israel since its war against Hamas began in the fall, warning that US policy toward Gaza moving forward will be determined by whether Israel takes certain actions to address the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave.
US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “unacceptable” and demanded Jerusalem take significant steps to alleviate the problem, according to a White House readout of the conversation.
Biden “made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers,” the statement said.
The White House also appeared to threaten to pull back US support for Israel in its war against the Hamas terrorist group if the Jewish state’s humanitarian measures are deemed insufficient by Washington.
“He [Biden] made clear that US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps,” the readout said.
White House spokesperson John Kirby declined at a briefing after the call to elaborate on any specific changes the US would make in its policy toward Israel and Gaza.
Asked about possible changes in US policy, a spokesperson for Netanyahu told Fox News: “I think it’s something that Washington will have to explain.”
The call between the two leaders came after an accidental Israeli military strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy on Monday killed seven aid workers. The White House had described Biden as outraged by the attack. Israeli officials described the incident as a misidentification, saying they would adjust tactics and publicize the findings of a probe into the strike.
In his call, Biden pushed for Israel to agree to an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.
“He underscored that an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians, and he urged the prime minister to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home,” the White House said.
Israel has maintained that any ceasefire agreement must include the release of all its remaining hostages in Gaza. Israeli officials have also cautioned that any long-term truce would allow Hamas to regroup and strengthen its position to continue attacking the Jewish state.
Hamas, which rules Gaza, launched the current war with its invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, when the terrorist group murdered 1,200 people and took 253 others as hostages. Over 100 of those kidnapped were released as part of a temporary ceasefire agreement in November.
Israel responded to the invasion with a military offensive in neighboring Gaza aimed at freeing all the hostages and incapacitating Hamas to the point that it could no longer pose a major threat to the Israeli people. Hamas leaders have pledged to carry out massacres against Israel like the one on Oct. 7 “again and again.”
Biden expressed strong support for Israel following the Oct. 7 onslaught, and since then the US has sent significant amounts of munitions to the Jewish state for its war effort against Hamas. However, as the humanitarian situation in Gaza has worsened and civilian casualties have increased, Democrats have increasingly pressured Biden to distance the US from Israel and withhold military aid.
Some prominent observers have suggested that the Biden administration’s changing position on Israel and the war, which has taken place over the last several weeks, may be influenced by domestic political fears of losing electoral support from anti-Israel voters.
In Michigan, for example, a key battleground state and home to America’s largest Arab population, a campaign to vote “uncommitted” during the state’s primary rather than for Biden gained significant support.
Biden was not the only major US official to threaten a change in US policy toward Israel and Gaza on Thursday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Brussels that Israel “must meet this moment” by increasing humanitarian assistance and ensuring the security of those who provide aid.
“If we don’t see the changes that we need to see, there’ll be changes in our policy,” Blinken told reporters.
Israel on Wednesday revealed detailed information about the significant amount of humanitarian aid it has provided to Gaza since mid-October. According to the data, Israel authorized the entry of nearly 3,000 trucks into Gaza, carrying a total of 40,475 tons of humanitarian aid such as food, water, medicine, and shelter equipment. An additional 447 tons of material were transported by sea.
Meanwhile, analyses of casualty figures coming out of Gaza suggests the Hamas-controlled health authorities there systematically overcount civilian casualties and undercount terrorist combatants who were killed.
Also on Thursday’s call between Biden and Netanyahu, the two leaders discussed recent public threats by Iranian officials against Israel. Iran is the main international sponsor of Hamas, providing the Palestinian terrorist group with arms, funding, and training.
“President Biden made clear that the United States strongly supports Israel in the face of those threats,” the White House readout concluded.
The post Biden Threatens US Policy Change Toward Gaza in Warning to Netanyahu 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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