In the first phase, the new route will include two weekly flights starting from January 31, 2021…reports Asian Lite News
Israel’s Israir has announced that it will operate direct passenger flights to Bahrain, becoming the first airline to announce a regular direct route between the two countries after they agreed to fully normalise relations in September.
In a statement on Monday, the airline said that flights from the Ben Gurion International Airpor outside Tel Aviv, to the Bahrain International Airport near the capital Manama will take about two and a half hours, reports Xinhua news agency.
In the first phase, the new route will include two weekly flights starting from January 31, 2021.
The direct flights became possible after Saudi Arabia agreed in early September to allow Israeli planes to fly over its territory.
In September, Israir announced it will operate direct passenger flights to the United Arab Emirates, which also signed a normalization agreement with Israel.
Also last month, Arkia, Israel’s second-largest airline, had announced direct flight services to Dubai, which will begin from January 3, 2021.
Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat
Saeb Erekat, the Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), died Tuesday, weeks after being infected by the coronavirus, reports Arab News. He was a veteran peace negotiator and prominent international spokesman for the Palestinians for more than three decades.
The 65 year old American-educated Erekat was involved in nearly every round of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians going back to the landmark Madrid conference in 1991, when he famously showed up draped in a black-and-white checkered keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.
Over the next few decades Erekat was a constant presence in Western media, where he tirelessly advocated for a negotiated two-state solution to the decades-old conflict, defended the Palestinian leadership and blamed Israel for the failure to reach an agreement, the report added.
“The lawsuit includes a claim for compensation for the material loss and moral damage caused by the settlers’ demolition of the house built in Area B,” Mansour added….reports Asian Lite News
For the first time since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994, a Palestinian man in the West Bank has filed a lawsuit against Israeli settlers who “vandalised” his home.
Muntaser Mansour, the 30-year-old owner of a 170-square-meter home under construction in the village of Burin, south of the West Bank city of Nablus, told Xinhua news agency on Monday that he demands compensation for the damage caused by the Israeli settlers.
“The lawsuit includes a claim for compensation for the material loss and moral damage caused by the settlers’ demolition of the house built in Area B,” Mansour added.
Under the Oslo peace accords signed between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993, the West Bank was divided into three areas: Area A under the full control of the PA, Area B under joint Israeli-Palestinian control, and Area C under full Israeli control.
Nablus (Palestine): A Palestinian protester throws stones at Israeli soldiers during a protest against the expanding of Jewish settlements in Kufr Qadoom village near the West Bank city of Nablus on December 5, 2014.(Xinhua/Ayman Nobani/IANS)
Mansour said that he demands compensation also because he has been deprived of the rights to build the house for eight years which forced his family to live in a rented house.
Mansour, whose house is located in an area between two Israeli settlements, accused the Israeli authorities and settlers of preventing him from rebuilding his house in a bid to link the two settlements.
Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has built dozens of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, which have been one of the major disputes between Israel and the PA that has stalled the peace process.
The Palestinian cabinet recently decided to form a national team to prosecute Israeli settlers accused of committing crimes against the Palestinian residents in the Palestinian courts.
Minister of Justice Mohammed al-Shalaldeh told Xinhua that the international law and international humanitarian law regulate the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians.
In the Oslo accords, there is a provision for civil jurisdiction over the Israelis’ damage caused to the Palestinians, he noted.
The Minister added that the legal basis of these lawsuits are not the Oslo accords, but the international law.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation chaired the meeting that was held virtually with the participation of GCC Foreign Ministers, in attendances of Dr. Nayef Falah M. Al Hajraf, GCC Secretary-General…reports Asian Lite News
The UAE has chaired a joint meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs of GCC countries with Wang Li, State Counselor, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation chaired the meeting that was held virtually with the participation of GCC Foreign Ministers, in attendances of Dr. Nayef Falah M. Al Hajraf, GCC Secretary-General.
Addressing the meeting,Sheikh Abdullah said, “We gather today, a few days after the passing of the wise leader, the prince of diplomacy and humanity, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, the Emir of Kuwait. The late Emir always undertook great efforts to build and maintain a collective consensus towards peace and stability; and he exerted successful diplomatic mediation efforts on numerous regional and international issues.
He was a very popular leader, loved and welcomed by everyone, and his sincere efforts have always been highly recognised and appreciated by all. We all ask Allah to lay his soul peacefully in heaven, and that His Highness Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, the Emir of Kuwait, and his Crown Prince, Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, guide the path of peace, development and stability in the brotherly State of Kuwait.”
Sheikh Abdullah noted, “We highly appreciate and commend the cooperation of the People’s Republic of China with the GCC countries to address and combat the Covid-19 pandemic through the provision of equipment, medications, and through the partnerships in developing vaccines against the pandemic. We look forward to further closer ties in this regard.”
He emphasised that the People’s Republic of China is one of the GCC’s most prominent trading partners, with trade surge over ten times, from about USD16.3 billion in 2001 to about USD 167.7 billion in 2018, and the signing of the FTA which will promote strategic cooperation and partnership.
Reem bint Ibrahim Al Hashemy, Minister of State for International Cooperation and a number of top GCC and Chinese officials attended the meeting.
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Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. (File Photo: IANS)
The resolutions were passed on Novermber 4 by a committee at the UN General Assembly with overwhelming majorities and were supported by the three Arab countries with which Israel recently signed normalization deals as well as most European states….reports Asian Lite News
The Arab League (AL) has welcomed the recent endorsement of six UN resolutions in favour of the Palestinian people and their rights and opposing Israeli practices, the Cairo-based body said in a statement.
“This vote reflects the commitment of the international community towards the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, foremost of which is the right to self-determination and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes,” Xinhua news agency quoted Saeed Abu Ali, AL assistant secretary general for Palestine affairs and occupied Arab territories, as saying in the statement issued on Sunday.
The resolutions were passed on Novermber 4 by a committee at the UN General Assembly with overwhelming majorities and were supported by the three Arab countries with which Israel recently signed normalization deals as well as most European states.
The renewed resolutions support the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which helps the Palestinian refugees, and criticize the Israeli settlement expansion on occupied Palestinian territories.
The massive endorsement shows international commitment to “the important role that UNRWA has been playing since its establishment in providing vital services to more than 5.5 million refugees”, said the AL official.
He also urged the states that promised financial contributions to UNRWA to fulfill their commitments so that the pro-Palestinian agency could continue its work and overcome the additional challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Also last week, the Israeli forces demolished a small Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, leaving over 70 civilians homeless including 41 minors, a move that was slammed by the UN and the European Union.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for decades, following the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948.
The Palestinians seek to establish their own independent state on the 1967 borders, based on the UN-proposed two-state solution.
The slain soldiers were taken to a US base in the Shaddadi area in the Hasakah countryside.reports Asian Lite News
Four US soldiers were killed by an explosive device in Syria’s Hasakah province, according to a state media report.
On Sunday, explosive device tore through a US military vehicle in the village of Markadeh on the Hasakah-Deir al-Zour road, Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying.
It added that a translator was among the slain soldiers.
Following the explosion, the US forces cordoned off the area.
The slain soldiers were taken to a US base in the Shaddadi area in the Hasakah countryside, the state media report said.
It said the US forces and their allies of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) control the majority of oil fields in northeastern Syria.
The report added that thousands of truckloads of military gears reached US bases in Hasakah.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since Iraqi security forces fully defeated the IS militants across the country late in 2017….reports Asian Lite News
Four people were killed and three others injured in an Islamic State (IS)attack near Baghdad, the Iraqi military said on Monday.
The attack took place late Sunday night when four IS militants attacked a military position manned by a government-backed paramilitary Sunni group known as Sahwa in the al-Radwaniyah area, Xinhua news agency quoted the media office of the Joint Operations Command (JOC) as saying in a statement.
One of the three injured left the hospital after receiving treatment, the statement added, without giving further details.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since Iraqi security forces fully defeated the IS militants across the country late in 2017.
However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas, deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.
Syrian males have to serve in the military upon reaching the age of 18 and those who study in the universities can postpone the service until finishing their education…reports Asian Lite News
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has made a big change in the military service law, mainly for Syrian expatriates.
The new amendment to the law announced on Sunday is mainly about setting military service exemption fees for Syrians living abroad and for one category of Syrians inside the country, reports Xinhua news agency.
Syrian males have to serve in the military upon reaching the age of 18 and those who study in the universities can postpone the service until finishing their education.
Previously, Syrian males living abroad for four years and above could pay $8,000 to get exempted from the two-year mandatory military service.
Now, the law covers those who spend as short as one year abroad as they have to pay $10,000.
For those who spend two years, three years and four years and above abroad, they should pay $9,000, $8,000 and $7,000, respectively to get exempted.
For Syrians who live inside the country, there was no exemption fee for military service before the new amendment.
Now, Syrians with medical conditions whose service is in fixed places in the army, largely office service, can pay $3,000 to get exempted.
The new amendment to the law is welcomed by Syrians, which will also help in supporting the state coffers as the country is reeling under tough economic pressure.
The first day of the several-day operation resulted in the seizure of 14 roadside bombs, rocket launchers, and 10 mortar rounds as well as finding two tunnels used by the IS militants in the mountains…reports Asian Lite News
Iraqi security forces have launched a major offensive against the Islamic State (IS) terror group in a mountainous area in Salahudin province, the military said.
Iraqi forces, backed by the US-led coalition and Iraqi aircraft, began the offensive on Sunday in the mountain ranges of Makhoul and Khanogah, Xinhua news agency quoted the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) as saying in a statement.
The first day of the several-day operation resulted in the seizure of 14 roadside bombs, rocket launchers, and 10 mortar rounds as well as finding two tunnels used by the IS militants in the mountains, the JOC statement said.
The forces conducted a series of airstrikes on the IS positions, Yahia Rasoul, spokesman of the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi forces said in a separate statement.
JOC spokesman Tahsin al-Khafaji told the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) that the security forces “pursued a new tactic through setting up towers and thermal cameras for surveillance to prevent the extremist militants from returning to the areas”.
The mountains and vast rural areas in Salahudin province have witnessed intense IS activities during the past months, despite repeated military operations to hunt them down.
The security situation in Iraq has been improving since security forces fully defeated the IS militants across the country late in 2017.
However, IS remnants have since melted in urban areas or deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.
