CrossFireArabia
Palestinian journalist Tareq Mustafa mourns his slain sister Ilham, who was killed along with several relatives in the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Tareq tragically lost more than 30 members of his family, including his parents.
CrossFireArabia
Palestine will miss him greatly. Elias Khoury, a leading Lebanese novelist and writers and a staunch advocate for the Palestinian cause, gave up and died, Sunday.
Khoury, a leading voice of Arab literature, had been ill for months and admitted and discharged from hospital several times over the past year until his death, the Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily for which he worked stated.
One of his best-known novels, Gate of the Sun, tells the story of Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes in 1948 during the war that coincided with heartache creation of Israel.
“The Catastrophe began in 1948 and it is still going on,” he once wrote referring to Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
On 16 July, he published an article, titled A Year of Pain, recounting his time bedridden in hospital and enduring “a life filled with pain, which stops only to herald in more pain”. He ended his piece by alluding to the Israeli war in the besieged Gaza Strip, which by had rthen aged on for more than nine months.
“Gaza and Palestine have been brutally bombarded for almost a year now, but they stand steadfast and unshakable,” Khoury wrote. “A model from which I have learned to love life every day.”
The Institute for Palestine Studies honored the late Lebanese novelist for his contributions in support of the Palestinian people.
“Elias Khoury was a staunch advocate for Palestine, contributing to the struggle nationally and intellectually,” the institute said in a statement posted on X.
“Even while hospitalised due to illness, Khoury continued to work on the publication of the institute’s Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyya journal, “especially during the genocide in the Gaza Strip”, the institute pointed out in a statement
He “paid exceptional attention to the plight of prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons, devoting pages of the journal to this crucial cause”, the statement added according to the Quds News Network.
CrossFireArabia
The latest scandal of Israeli officials telling African asylum seekers that they would be given legal status if they served in the Israeli army and fought in the war against Gaza is causing shock waves.
The story first reported in Haaretz and then the other Israeli newspapers is trending on the social media with much commentary.
There are approximately 30,000 African asylum seekers in Israel, primarily young men who are looking for permanent stay in Israel.
Israeli officials have latched on the idea and gave decided to lure them to join the Israeli army to fight in Gaza, and no doubtedly in the brewing war on the Israeli-Lebanese border with Hezbollah despite the risks
Many of these workers, including around 3,500 Sudanese citizens, have sneeked into Israel and hold temporary status granted by Israeli courts due to delays in processing asylum applications.
Although the story have only just come to light, Israeli officials have tried to recruit these workers soon after the war on Gaza started after 7 October, 2023, and have continued eversince, especially in the months when the war become “bloody” for the Israelis.
Sources within Israel’s security establishments show that this initiative, being conducted under the guidance of legal advisers, aims to utilize asylum seekers’ desire for permanent residency to bolster military personnel and exploiting vulnerable people from Africa for these combative and quite often dangerous roles acccording to the Quds News Network.
This is while the Anadolu, ran the Haaretz story saying the Israeli government is telling its asylum seekers from different African countries it would grant them permanent residency if the join the Israeli army and fight in its war against the Palestinians in Gaza.
It added that Israeli defense officials are realizing that they could use the asylum seekers to bolster their military presence in Gaza by exploiting their deep wishes to obtain permanent residence in Israel.
Citing defense officials, the newspaper says these procedures are conducted “in an organized manner, with the guidance of defense establishment legal advisers,” according to the Turkish news agency.
However, “the ethical considerations of recruiting asylum seekers have not been addressed,” and so far, “no asylum seekers who contributed to the war effort have been granted official status.”
“Some people have expressed objections to the practice, arguing that it exploits people who have fled their countries due to war,” according to the Haaretz daily stated, adding that these voices have been silenced.
The South African Foreign Ministry on 18 December, 2023 warned that any South African citizens who join the Israeli army in the ongoing Gaza conflict could face prosecution at home.
The South African government is gravely concerned by reports that some South African citizens and permanent residents have joined or are considering joining the Israeli forces in the war in Gaza and the other Occupied Palestinian Territories, a ministry statement said as reported by Anadolu.
“Such action can potentially contribute to the violation of international law and the commission of further international crimes, thus making them liable for prosecution in South Africa,” it emphasized.
CrossFireArabia
Israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pape is determined but factually logical in what he says:
“And for me ‘hope’, I want to explain so that nobody misunderstands what it means for me, hope for me, is the end of Israel and the creation of a free Palestine from the river to the sea.”
He says elsewhere and he is quoted in Spanish: “We are in the middle of the last chapter of this Zionist project in Palestine. And the last chapters are violent, they are chapters of decolonization.”
CrossFireArabia
Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin denounced the ongoing “silence” on Israel’s genocide war on Gaza, describing Gaza as “undoubtedly the greatest historic scandal, which no one talks about in this country [France] anymore”.
In a radio interview with France Inter, Thursday, de Villepin expressed his anger over the French political and media response to Israel’s war on Gaza when asked to comment on the appointment of Michel Barnier as prime minister and the political and economic challenges facing France.
When the journalist brought up the war and cited the death toll as provided by “Hamas’ health ministry”, de Villepin quickly interrupted her.
“I hear that all the time… It is not only the Ministry of Health of Hamas that says that there are 40,000 dead; there are probably many more. Let’s not give the impression that this is a truncated figure,” he said.
“No, it is, unfortunately, an everyday reality. In Gaza, bodies are in pieces; hearts are in pieces; souls are in pieces; heads are in pieces,” he commented.
De Villepin said it seems there is “no prospect” of reconstruction on the horizon. “Israel is creating the conditions for a reoccupation [of Gaza],” he said.
“Whether it is in the southern line or in the line that cuts [the enclave] in the middle, the creation of a perimeter around, Israel has taken back possession of Gaza. Gaza is completely besieged.”
De Villepin warned that “at a time when the West Bank itself is breaking down, as we can see in the north and in the south, we are in front of a real pressure cooker”.
The former centre-right prime minister went on to describe Gaza as “undoubtedly the greatest historic scandal, which no one talks about in this country anymore”.
“It is silence, a lead weight; the media doesn’t discuss it… I have to turn to Google to find news that gives me the number of deaths in Gaza. It is a real scandal in terms of democracy,” he said.
“And all this in the name of what? War. It is war; that’s how it is. However, it is not quite a war like the others. These are civilian populations who are dying. We are in Absurdia and France is stepping aside.”
When asked what France, the European Union or the United States should do, de Villepin pointed out that the West has “levers in terms of armaments, in the economic field”. He said: “We continue to accept trading with territories where Israeli colonisation is active… but we refuse to [use these levers] under absolutely unheard-of arguments.”
“Israel must be allowed to wage its war to the end?” he questioned. “But to what end? Yoav Gallant, Israel’s minister of defence, says that Hamas has been eradicated in Gaza, so what is the end?”
De Villepin, who has long been a vocal critic of Israel’s policy in Palestine, stressed that “Israel cannot be safe until there is recognition of a Palestinian state alongside it that shares responsibility for security in this region,” according to the Quds News Network.
