ARABINFOCUS

           ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES UNDER TENSION A wave of violence has affected both Israel and the occupied territories in recent days, with deaths on both sides and fears that the clashes will be more serious and numerous. Let's make an objective story: The violence began last Thursday when the Israeli armed forces stormed the Jenin refugee camp again, killing 9 Palestinians and injuring 20 others. A Palestinian radical, probably out of a desire for revenge, killed 7 Israelis outside a synagogue on Friday. The attacker was then killed by Israeli forces. And on Saturday there was an unusual case when a Palestinian youth of just 13 years old shot and wounded 2 Israelis in eastern Al-Qods. The young man was "neutralized and wounded" according to an Israeli statement. That a 13-year-old boy commits this aggression reflects the state of frustration that the Palestinian people experience in Israel and the occupied territories in the face of Israel'...

                                   SEVEN ISRAELIS KILLED ON THE SABBATH Last night, a Palestinian killed seven Israelis and wounded ten others while leaving Shabbat prayers at a synagogue in the Neve Yaakov settler settlement, also in East Jerusalem. In the words of the Islamist group Hamas, it was revenge for the "massacre" in Jenin. This is one of the bloodiest attacks in recent years, which portends a great escalation of tension between Israelis and Palestinians.  The attack was celebrated with sweets and fireworks in the main Palestinian cities. Israeli emergency services treated the seriously injured on an emergency basis to try to prevent further deaths. The escalation began when Israeli troops stormed into Jenin, killing nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman.

      Algeria and France are continuing their rapprochement Algeria and France are continuing their rapprochement which began last August with the “successful” visit of President Emmanuel Macron. ANP Chief of Staff General of the Army Said Chanegriha ended his four-day visit to France with a meeting with his French counterpart, General of the Army Thierry Burkhard. Army General Saïd Chanegriha had intense activity in the French capital, where he stayed for four days. He was notably received by French President Emmanuel Macron, to whom he delivered a message from the President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and by the French Minister for the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu. Saïd Chanegriha also visited French army training schools. The two countries remained more or less discreet on the substance of the discussions between the head of the Algerian army and his French counterparts, contenting themselves with evoking the protocol aspects. According to the DND, the two...

                                    ISRAEL KILLS 9 PALESTINIANS IN JENIN In a new attack on a refugee camp in Jenin, in the occupied territories, Israeli forces killed 9 Palestinians on Thursday and injured twelve others, the Palestinian national authority reported in Ramallah. Four of the injured are in critical condition. An elderly woman has been reported among the dead, according to Palestinian officials, in one of the deadliest days in the occupied West Bank since Israeli raids intensified at the start of last year. General strikes have ensued in Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah with schools closing early and stores shut. According to Al Jazeera, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during raids in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in January has risen to at least 29 people, including five children. At least 15 of those killed were from Jenin.  

                             SWEDEN: INSULT TO OUR ISLAMIC RELIGION The Quran is the holy book of Muslims, the one that will accompany them throughout their existence, sustaining them with its divine wisdom. But if the believers fulfill their obligations and Islam protects them, there are also in the Christian West the enemies ofAllah, the only God, the disbelievers who bring hatred to actions as cowardly, as sacrilegious, as disrespectful as the hateful burning of the holy book . In Sweden, last week, in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, some disbelievers burned a copy of the holy book. Ankara immediately denounced the act, as well as Sweden's granting of a permit to the right-wing group to hold the demonstration. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the vile attack on our holy book … Permitting this anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values, under the guise of freedom o...

ALGERIA MAKES ITALY FIRST ENERGY PARTNER AND ABANDONS SPAIN The Algerian president, Tebboune, has said with absolute clarity that Algeria has its first partner in energy relations in Italy, to the point of turning the Italian country into the "hub" for natural gas exports to other buyers. This means, and the Algerian leader clearly specified that Spain has ceased to be of interest to Algiers in terms of energy. These statements are part of the interview that Tebboune held with the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, who was very satisfied with this orientation, stating "we will gladly be a gas node for Europe". Spain lost its influence and its good relations with Algeria when the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, turned around the traditional position of neutrality on Western Sahara and sided with Morocco, accepting its autonomy plan that the United Nations does not support because they maintain the right to self-determination of the Saharawi people, M...

                           REPRESSION IN ISRAEL: THE HAMOURI CASE Since his expulsion to France by Israel on December 18, the Franco-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri says he has suffered more often from his right thigh, where an Israeli bullet harvested in 2000, when he was a teenager, remains embedded. "When it's super cold, it hurts me a little," he told AFP in mid-January in Paris, where the temperatures are much cooler than in Jerusalem. "I think about it all the time. It's part of the traces of the occupation that pursue me", continues this slender man with intense blue eyes, pointin "At 6 or 7 years old", Salah Hamouri says he discovered the prison by visiting this uncle. He himself will then multiply prison stays. Now 37, he has lived through nine, nearly a quarter of his life spent in detention. Five months in 2001, four months in 2004, thirteen months in 2017, ten days in 2020, then nine months in 2022 ... "W...

EUROPEAN  DEPUTIES CRITICIZED MOROCCO ON PRESS FREEDOM MEPs strongly criticized the deterioration of press freedom in Morocco on Thursday, saying they were also "concerned" by the allegations of corruption weighing on Rabat in the framework of an investigation carried out by Belgian justice and also targeting Qatar . In a non-binding text very widely adopted in Strasbourg (356 votes for, 32 against and 42 abstentions), the European Parliament "urges" the Moroccan authorities to "respect freedom of expression and freedom of the media" and to "guarantee imprisoned journalists (...) a fair trial". MEPs insist in particular on the case of Omar Radi. This independent journalist known for his positions critical of power was arrested in 2020 and sentenced on appeal in March to six years in prison for "rape" and "espionage", charges he has always denied. "Many defense rights were not respected, which taints the whole trial with u...

                                            THE LAST AFRICAN COLONY Is there still a colonized territory in Africa? The answer is YES and the last African colony is Western Sahara, which was colonized by Spain until 1975. That year, Spain ceded the administration of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania. He did not give up sovereignty because he did not possess it. Mauritania then withdrew and Morocco occupied the entire territory. Morocco offers Western Sahara autonomy under its sovereignty. The current Spanish government supports that idea, but the Spanish people massively support the independence of the colony. There is a liberation movement, the Polisario Front, which since 1975 has demanded the holding of a referendum on self-determination. The UN supports this idea, but Morocco has rejected it and affirms that the territory is "its southern provinces". Thousands of Sahra...

                                          IRAN SENDS WEAPONS TO REBELS IN YEMEN The US Navy said today that one of its units intercepted in international waters a ship carrying 2,000 AK-47 rifles destined for Houthi rebels in Yemen. The assault on the ship took place in the Gulf of Oman, but the United States claims that it took place in international waters and that the action was within the framework of the sanctions provided for the war in Yemen. “The illegal flow of weapons from Iran through international waterways has a destabilizing effect on the region,” said Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, the commander of US Central Command. photo:  A boarding team from patrol coastal ship USS Chinook (PC 9) approaches a fishing vessel in international waters of the Gulf of Oman, January 6.

                                                          TELL THE TRUTH The six Arab countries that maintain relations with Israel have told us time and again that they expected the Jewish state to make gestures in favor of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and in Gaza, and to suspend the construction of illegal settlements. But what is the truth? The far-right government that he presides over, Netanyahu, has already stated his plans to continue with the settlements, and as for making gestures in favor of the Palestinians, let us remember the last murder of the young woman, Jana Zakarneh, 15, fatally shot in Jenin. Israel has never recognized the United Nations security council resolutions condemning its human rights violations, its refusal to withdraw from the occupied territories, and its brutal attacks on Gaza. That's t...

                         BEN-GVIR, A NEW ISRAELI PROVOCATION The United Arab Emirates and China have called for a UN Security Council meeting after Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir  entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound  in a widely denounced move. Ben-Gvir’s actions drew fierce condemnation across the world, with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE joining the Palestinians in condemning him. The Palestinian leadership called the intrusion “an unprecedented provocation”. Netanyahu's religious-rightist government is known for its style of organizing provocations against the Palestinians, in particular by violating the esplanade of the Al-Aqsar mosque and even penetrating its interior, a fact that deserves international rejection. Hamas, the group that governs the besieged Gaza Strip, warned that Ben-Gvir’s move amounts to crossing a “red line”. The Israeli military said ...

                                  WHAT ROLE DOES RUSSIA PLAY IN SYRIA? Russia supports the Syrian regime headed by Bashir Al-Assad, and in exchange for it has a naval base in Latakia; It is the only Russian base in the Mediterranean and for this reason it is important. Russia also has the use of the Himeimin air base. However, Russian forces in Syria remain inactive when Israeli aircraft attack targets in Syria; the last of this has been to bomb the Damascus airport last weekend. Two Syrian soldiers died during the attack. Israel justifies these bombings to inflict casualties on Hizbullah forces located on Syrian territory, but this is a violation of Syrian territorial sovereignty and it is difficult to understand why Russia accepts these Israeli bombings. The only explanation that could be given points to compromises made secretly between Moscow and Tel-Aviv not to interfere in Israeli attacks against ...