News Archives - Page 33 of 250

Israeli Troops Raid Wedding in Hebron, Arrest Groom

CrossFireArabia
February 1, 2025

Israeli soldiers raided a Palestinian wedding ceremony, Friday, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and detained the groom and other guests.

The arrests are trending on the social media with much images and commentary from news websites other bloggers.

According to witnesses the groom and the other guests were detained for an hour before they were released according to Anadolu.

Zionists detained a Palestinian groom during a raid on a wedding venue in Hebron, located in the occupied West Bank.

The occupation forces timed the arrest/kidnapping deliberately to inflict maximum suffering on the groom's family and friends.

The sickness of Zionism. pic.twitter.com/l39b0cg0v0
— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) February 1, 2025

One blogger said the Israeli army stormed the “wedding in Hebron and abducted the groom while he was next to his bride. What was supposed to be the happiest moment for the couple turned into their worst because of Israel.”

The Israeli forces raided the Abu Turki family celebration at the Sofia Hall in the Umm al-Dalia area in the center of Hebron and took the men for questioning and forcing them to raise their hands.

Witnesses said the Israeli troops vandalized some of the cars of the guests with the reasons remaining unclear of why they wanted to raid the wedding party.

Reports indicate that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the escalation in the West Bank because of threats from right-wing parties to bring down his government over the ceasefire, which they oppose according to the Turkish news agency.

News

Thousands of Egyptians at Rafah Border Protest Trump’s Proposal

CrossFireArabia
January 31, 2025

Thousands of Egyptians gathered in front of the Rafah border crossing on Friday to protest US President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle Palestinians in other countries, Egyptian media reported.

Crowds from other Egyptian governorates flocked to the border to protest Trump’s remarks about Palestinian displacement last week, which were also dismissed by several European and Arab countries.

Before Friday’s rally at the Rafah border, according to social media footage, several Egyptian governorates, including Beheira, Kafr el Sheikh, Gharbia, Ismailia, Sharqia, Qalyubia, and Beni Suef, held public protests Thursday evening against the displacement of Palestinians.

Egyptian media outlets broadcast footage of “rare” demonstrations as thousands of Egyptians gather at the Rafah border crossing to protest what they call “Trump’s plans for the forced displacement of Palestinians.”pic.twitter.com/xNCS8eoKGT
— Mohamed shohood (@Mshohood) January 31, 2025

According to an Anadolu correspondent, this is the first rally at the Rafah border since Trump proposed on Jan. 25 to simply “clean out” the Gaza Strip and resettle Palestinians in Jordan and Egypt, describing the coastal enclave as a “demolition site” following Israel’s genocidal war.

While Egyptian responses have avoided directly addressing Trump, officials have consistently condemned any attempt to expel Palestinians from their homeland.

The Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Sunday condemning the plan, which was followed by comments from Parliament Speaker Hanafy Jebali on Monday and Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared on Wednesday that his country will not participate in any forced displacement of Palestinians, calling it an “act of injustice we cannot tolerate,” and reaffirmed his country’s commitment to a two-state solution.

Many countries, including Jordan, Iraq, France, and Germany, as well as organizations like the League of Arab States, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, and the UN, have strongly opposed the resettlement plan.

Trump’s proposal came after a ceasefire agreement took effect in Gaza on Jan. 19, suspending Israel’s genocidal war that has killed more than 47,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured more than 111,000 since Oct. 7, 2023.

The Israeli onslaught has left more than 11,000 people missing, with widespread destruction and a humanitarian crisis that has claimed the lives of many elderly people and children in one of the worst global humanitarian disasters ever.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

News

No Victory For Israel in Gaza

CrossFireArabia
January 31, 2025

Ruvik Rosenthal in Haaretz: The Israeli occupation has failed to achieve its war goals, losing both the war and global public support. Despite destroying land and killing tens of thousands, the occupation is still losing. #Israel #Gazaceasefire #Trump

He write in a column the Israeli daily newspaper that none of the war’s goals were achieved. Hamas was not “destroyed”, but its ranks were replenished, the residents of Gaza went nowhere. There is no security for the Israeli residents of the envelope (areas sorrounding Gaza) who have not yet returned to their destroyed homes, and dozens of kidnapped soldiers have not yet returned from captivity.

He added we lost years of the world’s sympathy for us, the country’s economy entered at least a decade of stagnation, the army was eroded, and the circles of physical and psychological rehabilitation expanded and reached every home in Israel.

Rosenthal continued there is no image of victory. There are no “fruits” of victory. But if we cannot enjoy the fruits of victory, perhaps this is the time to enjoy the fruits of loss. The fruits of loss are the fruits of awareness, the fruits of the difficult realization that war is not a possible way of life for a people who want to live. The fruits of loss are the transition from the bloody battlefield and back to the family of peoples, to international agreements, to the Abraham Accords.

News

Israeli Army Withdraws From The Rafah Crossing

CrossFireArabia
January 31, 2025

The Israeli army withdrew from the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Friday in accordance with the terms of the cease-fire agreement, which went into effect on January 19.

According to Israeli Army Radio, the army handed over the crossing to an international force from the European Union (EU) in preparation for its reopening later on Friday.

The radio, which quoted a security source without mentioning his name, noted that the Israeli army has redeployed its forces in an area along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Besides the EU mission, the source said Palestinians from the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority will run the crossing from the Palestinian side, with the role being to stamp existing permits from Gaza.

The broadcaster’s correspondent, Doron Kadosh, said 50 wounded Palestinians will be allowed every day to travel in addition to three escorts to each injured, totaling 200 people every day.

He added that all names of wounded people and their escorts will be checked by the Israeli general security service Shin Bet, along with Egyptian approval on the names.

The EU on Friday resumed its Rafah border crossing mission connecting the southern Gaza Strip to Egypt, including for Palestinians needing medical care.

“Europe is here to help: the EU’s civilian border mission deploys today to the Rafah Crossing at the request of the Palestinians and the Israelis,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced on X.

The Palestinian Health Ministry also confirmed that the crossing would open on Saturday for the first batch of wounded people to leave Gaza.

It added that their travel is planned in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

The Rafah crossing, a vital route for humanitarian aid into Gaza, has been closed since May 2024 after Israel’s ground offensive in the southern city of Rafah.

On Jan. 19, a ceasefire agreement and prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel went into effect, initially lasting 42 days, during which negotiations will continue for subsequent phases of the deal. The agreement is mediated by Egypt and Qatar, with support from the US.

Israel’s genocidal war has killed more than 47,400 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured more than 111,000 since Oct. 7, 2023.

The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has left more than 11,000 people missing, with widespread destruction and a humanitarian crisis that has claimed the lives of many elderly people and children in one of the worst global humanitarian disasters ever according to Anadolu.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

News

Israel’s War on Gaza Cost it $42 Billion

CrossFireArabia
January 31, 2025

The cost of the war for the Israeli occupation, until mid-January 2025, was 150 billion shekels (about $ 42 billion). That is an average of 300 million shekels (about $84 million) per day, according to the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth.

The newspaper reported there are large gaps between the cost of fighting in Lebanon, the cost of the Gaza Strip, and the “days of intense fighting” (i.e. attempts to confront Iranian missiles).

According to it, the heaviest cost in security expenditures is “funding the reserve army,” which amounts to 45 billion shekels (more than $12 billion).

A high-ranking source in the Israeli Ministry of Finance previously stated the huge new budgets allocated for 2025 to rebuild the northern and southern settlements are “frozen.”

The source told Yedioth Ahronoth that “the use of these budgets will not be possible until the final approval of the government budget.”

The source added the failure to approve the government budget for 2025 “is already causing significant damage to the economy, while the concern in the Finance Ministry now is that Israel will be run for an entire quarter on an interim budget, with the budget for each of the months of January, February, and March equal to 1/12 of the original government budget for 2024.”

However, “the Finance Ministry’s accountant general decided to allocate a smaller budget, for fear that there would be a need to finance additional months with an interim budget, and to create a reserve aimed at preventing disruption to the budgets of vital services for Israelis.”

In the same context, a senior government economic source also expressed to Yedioth Ahronoth “real concern about the possibility that the government budget will not be approved by the deadline set by law, March 31.”

“If that happens, it will be a disaster,” the source said, adding that “the government’s failure to run the full budget required during the war, with a huge deficit and special security tasks that cannot be implemented, will cause enormous damage to the economy and security,” as stated in Al Mayadeen.