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The Red Cross Must Stop Facilitating Pay-for-Slay Terror Salaries
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visiting the West Bank city of Jenin. Photo: Reuters/Mohamad Torokman
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has announced that those Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel who must submit new forms to continue to receive their terror salaries from the PA in 2024, must immediately have this arranged through the International Red Cross.
The following is the announcement by Fatah in Bethlehem:
Posted text: “Honored prisoners’ relatives, please produce a [International Red] Cross document for those who have no sentence whose names appear below; a [International Red] Cross document accompanied by a new administrative [detention] order for the administrative detainees; and a [International Red] Cross document accompanied by a verdict for the sentenced prisoners.
This is in order to renew the monetary eligibility approval [i.e., PA salaries for terrorist prisoners] before Jan. 1, 2023 [sic., Jan. 1, 2024] …
Thank you.”
List title: “The list of prisoners whose eligibility will end during December 2023 … Administration of District 7 — Bethlehem District”
[Fatah Movement — Bethlehem Branch, Telegram channel, Dec. 4, 2023]
The accompanying pictures show a list of prisoners from the Fatah’s Bethlehem District whose period of eligibility to PA terror salaries will end in December 2023, unless they renew the forms though the Red Cross.
A similar announcement was released in Hebron by the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs — Hebron Directorate:
Posted text: “The relatives of the prisoners whose names are noted below must produce the signed [International Red] Cross documents. Respectfully.”
The pictures show a list of prisoners from the PA’s Hebron District whose period of eligibility for PA terror salaries ends in December 2023. Next to the prisoners’ names is written either “Bring a new [International Red] Cross document” or “Bring an administrative [detention] document with the [International Red] Cross’ [signature]”
List title: “The relatives of these prisoners must hurry and bring new signed [Red] Cross documents — before Dec. 5, 2023”
[PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs – Hebron Directorate, Facebook page, Nov. 26, 2023]
Earlier that same month, the Hebron district sent out a similar announcement:
Posted text: “The relatives of the prisoners whose names are mentioned below must produce the [Red] Cross documents by the end of the day [Nov. 5, 2023].”
[PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs — Hebron Directorate, Facebook page, Nov. 5, 2023]
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) calls on the Red Cross to permanently cease to be the facilitator for terrorists to receive the terror rewards from the PA. Especially now, when terrorists in the Gaza Strip are holding Israeli hostages and preventing the Red Cross from seeing them, the Red Cross should at a minimum refuse to facilitate new terror salaries until the Israeli hostages are seen to and released.
PMW likewise calls on the Israeli government to demand the Red Cross not facilitate salaries to terrorists, and certainly not until the hostages are released.
The author is the founder and executive director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.
The post The Red Cross Must Stop Facilitating Pay-for-Slay Terror Salaries first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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