Sisi Urges All to Respect Egypt's Sovereignty after Drone Incidents

File photo of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egyptian Presidency)
File photo of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egyptian Presidency)
TT

Sisi Urges All to Respect Egypt's Sovereignty after Drone Incidents

File photo of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egyptian Presidency)
File photo of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egyptian Presidency)

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday urged all to respect Egypt's sovereignty and position in the region following incidents on Friday where drones fell on two Egyptian Red Sea towns.

Egyptians should feel safe and the army is able to protect the country, Reuters quoted Sisi saying at a manufacturing expo in Cairo.

He also emphasized that Egypt would continue to play a positive role in the Israel-Hamas conflict and did not want it to expand regionally.

Sis statements came after drones caused explosions that hit two Egyptian towns on the Red Sea on Friday.

Egypt's military spokesman Colonel Gharib Abdel-Hafez said two drones were fired from the southern Red Sea aiming north.
One drone crashed into a building adjacent to a hospital in the Egyptian town of Taba on the border with Israel, injuring six, in the early hours of Friday, Egypt's military said.
The second drone was downed outside Egyptian airspace on Friday morning, and the debris fell in a desert area of Nuweiba town, about 70 km from the Israeli border.



Israeli Defense Minister Says He Will End Detention without Charge of Jewish Settlers

Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Defense Minister Says He Will End Detention without Charge of Jewish Settlers

Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)

Israel’s new defense minister said Friday that he would stop issuing warrants to arrest West Bank settlers or hold them without charge or trial — a largely symbolic move that rights groups said risks emboldening settler violence in the Israeli-occupied territory.

Israel Katz called the arrest warrants “severe” and said issuing them was “inappropriate” as Palestinian militant attacks on settlers in the territory grow more frequent. He said settlers could be “brought to justice” in other ways.

The move protects Israeli settlers from being held in “administrative detention,” a shadowy form of incarceration where people are held without charge or trial.

Settlers are rarely arrested in the West Bank, where settler violence against Palestinians has spiraled since the outbreak of the war Oct. 7.

Katz’s decision was celebrated by far-right coalition allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. National Security Minister and settler firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir applauded Katz and called the move a “correction of many years of mistreatment” and “justice for those who love the land.”

Since Oct. 7, 2023, violence toward Palestinians by Israeli settlers has soared to new heights, displacing at least 19 entire Palestinian communities, according to Israeli rights group Peace Now. In that time, attacks by Palestinian militants on settlers and within Israel have also grown more common.

An increasing number of Palestinians have been placed in administrative detention. Israel holds 3,443 administrative detainees in prison, according to data from the Israeli Prison Service, reported by rights group Hamoked. That figure stood around 1,200 just before the start of the war. The vast majority of them are Palestinian, with only a handful at any given time Israeli Jews, said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked.

“All of these detentions without charge or trial are illegitimate, but to declare that this measure will only be used against Palestinians...is to explicitly entrench another form of ethnic discrimination,” said Montell.