Jordan’s King Abdullah Says World Should Condemn Any Attempt to Forcibly Expel Palestinians

Palestinians fleeing the Israeli ground offensive arrive in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. (AP)
Palestinians fleeing the Israeli ground offensive arrive in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. (AP)
TT

Jordan’s King Abdullah Says World Should Condemn Any Attempt to Forcibly Expel Palestinians

Palestinians fleeing the Israeli ground offensive arrive in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. (AP)
Palestinians fleeing the Israeli ground offensive arrive in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. (AP)

Jordan's King Abdullah said on Tuesday the world should condemn any attempt by Israel to create conditions that would forcibly displace Palestinians within the war-devastated Gaza Strip or outside its borders.

In remarks carried by state media after a meeting with the Cypriot president in Amman, the monarch again called for an immediate ceasefire and warned that Israel's relentless bombing campaign was leading to a "dangerous deterioration" in the situation.

Talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides focused on the need to increase efforts to deliver humanitarian aid and relief to the embattled civilians living in Gaza.

Abdullah has lobbied Western leaders to pile pressure on Israel to allow an uninterrupted flow of aid and open crossings it controls to bring in sufficient level of aid needed.

Israel now controls the volume and nature of aid entering to over 2.3 million inhabitants under siege, according to UN officials and humanitarian workers.

UNRWA officials say only a trickle of the aid the enclave needs is getting through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt which NGOs and officials say can only handle a fraction of the needs.

Israel started its campaign in retribution for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters who rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israel's tally.

Israeli bombardments have killed nearly 16,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry figures, and driven 80% of the population from their homes.

King Abdullah told Christodoulides there would be dangerous consequences from any attempt to forcibly push Palestinians en masse from their land while it maintained security control, officials said.

Officials also fear wider violence in the West Bank, which Jordan borders, as settler attacks on Palestinian civilians, confiscation of land and Israeli military raids mount.

It could create circumstances that could encourage Israel to forcibly push tens of thousands of Palestinians across the Jordan River.

Officials say the forcible expulsion of Palestinians would amount to a declaration of war and prompt Jordan to suspend its peace treaty with Israel.

On Tuesday, Amman condemned Israel's move to build new settlements in Arab East Jerusalem, the part of the contested city that was seized along with the West Bank in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the UN considers occupied territory.

"Israel's expansion of Jewish settlement building on land it occupied and the confiscation of territory are a flagrant violation of international law" and dimmed any prospects of peace, said Sufain Qudah, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry.



Lebanon Hopes for Neighborly Relations in First Message to New Syria Government

Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (C) arrives for a meeting with visiting Druze officials from Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in Damascus on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (C) arrives for a meeting with visiting Druze officials from Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in Damascus on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
TT

Lebanon Hopes for Neighborly Relations in First Message to New Syria Government

Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (C) arrives for a meeting with visiting Druze officials from Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in Damascus on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (C) arrives for a meeting with visiting Druze officials from Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in Damascus on December 22, 2024. (AFP)

Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.

Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed the message to his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on X.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad through years of war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel - a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines.

Under Assad, Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon. But on Dec. 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, opposition factions captured the capital Damascus.

Syria's new de-facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders after toppling Assad.