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Reports Accuse Netanyahu of Holding Secret Talks with Hamas in 2014

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (dpa)  
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (dpa)  
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Reports Accuse Netanyahu of Holding Secret Talks with Hamas in 2014

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (dpa)  
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (dpa)  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held direct contact and negotiations with Hamas behind the security establishment's back in 2014, reports in Tel Aviv said on Thursday, inciting upheaval in the Israeli political arena.

The Prime Minister’s Office denied Thursday’s reports, describing it as a “powerful blow” to the PM and his Likud party in the run-up to Israel's elections scheduled for late October.

The reports from the Walla news site and Maariv newspaper said Netanyahu maintained a secret, direct channel of communication with Hamas during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 without informing senior Israeli security officials.

Operation Protective Edge began in July 2014 following a limited exchange of rocket fire between Hamas and Israeli forces in Gaza. The war was preceded by a critical flashpoint when a settler kidnapped and murdered Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy.

In the 50-day war, more than 2,251 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians. Israel put the number of its dead at 69 soldiers and five civilians. Israeli air strikes and shelling hammered the densely populated Gaza Strip, dominated by Hamas, causing widespread destruction of thousands of homes and schools.

At the time, official negotiations were underway in Cairo to end the monthlong war, the reports said, adding that the Cairo delegation was unaware of Netanyahu’s backchannel talks.

During official talks in the Egyptian capital, the PM was put in contact with Hamas official Ghazi Hamad by Shlomi Fogel, an Israeli businessman who leads major companies in the maritime, real estate, cement, and construction sectors.

At the time, opposition Knesset Member Yulia Malinovsky officially filed a police complaint following a major investigative report revealing that Netanyahu authorized a secret, direct communication channel with Hamas during the 2014 Gaza war.

Israeli journalist Ben Caspit wrote on Thursday that officials had learned that Fogel, who was close to Netanyahu, was the person conducting the talks with Hamad.

At the time, Hamad served as deputy minister in the Hamas government in Gaza.

Fogel was operating under the guidance of then-National Security Council chief Yossi Cohen.

Senior defense officials confronted Netanyahu and asked him for an explanation. Netanyahu denied the matter and instructed them to contact Fogel and ask him to stop. However, it later became clear that Fogel had been acting with authorization and approval, behind the defense establishment’s back.

The journalist then uncovered that Fogel was initially warned, but after he continued the contacts despite the warning, officials discovered that he was acting with Netanyahu’s approval.

On Thursday, the PM’s Office issued a statement denying the publication, stating the report was based on “false briefings by political elements trying to harm the Prime Minister.”

"There was no such thing, and there will never be. Prime Minister Netanyahu has never approved such contacts," Netanyahu's office stated.

Additionally, Fogel's representative said the report was “Fake news.”

But both denials could not stop the storm of attacks issued mainly by military and intelligence chiefs, who denounced the direct talks with Hamas as “stabbing in the back” and “bypassing the security services.”

Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman declared in response to the report that the prime minister is a “danger to Israel’s security.”

“While I sought to eliminate Hamas, the PM was running secret talks with Hamas behind the Israeli army and intelligence officials,” he said.

Yashar chair and election frontrunner Gadi Eisenkot said in response to the report that “every day, the explanation for why Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his life to thwart the establishment of a state committee of inquiry... becomes clearer.”

Former prime minister and current head of the B’Yachad party, Naftali Bennett, who was a cabinet minister under Netanyahu in 2014, posted to X that the prime minister is “no longer capable of taking care of our security and certainly not of overcoming the enemy.”

 

 

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Arab World

Arms Embargo: Can Washington Breach the Wall of Sudan’s War?

Massad Boulos, senior adviser to the US president for Arab and African affairs (AFP) 
Massad Boulos, senior adviser to the US president for Arab and African affairs (AFP) 
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Arms Embargo: Can Washington Breach the Wall of Sudan’s War?

Massad Boulos, senior adviser to the US president for Arab and African affairs (AFP) 
Massad Boulos, senior adviser to the US president for Arab and African affairs (AFP) 

The United States has stirred the stagnant waters of Sudan’s war by announcing plans to expand an arms embargo imposed on Darfur for more than two decades to cover the entire country.

The move appears aimed at shifting from limited sanctions to a direct attempt to reduce the warring parties’ ability to keep fighting and force them to reconsider the cost of seeking a military victory compared with returning to negotiations. It is a risky step, but one that also signals Washington’s determination to make a breakthrough in a war described as one of the world’s largest and most severe humanitarian crises.

Massad Boulos, senior advisor to the US president for Arab and African affairs, told the UN Security Council days ago that the US proposal would cover drones, related technologies and components, while strengthening the work of the sanctions panel of experts tasked with monitoring violations.

The current Darfur arms embargo expires Sept. 12, making the coming weeks a test of Washington’s ability to build consensus in the Security Council. Russia has voiced clear reservations, saying it would not accept measures affecting the Sudanese army’s capabilities, while China has taken a cautious position on expanding sanctions, leaving adoption of the proposal in its current form uncertain.

Washington views the proposed embargo as a pressure tool rather than merely a punitive measure. According to The Associated Press, the US administration believes restricting the flow of weapons to the belligerents could push them back to the negotiating table. UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo has meanwhile warned against the parties’ continued reliance on a military solution and the steady influx of sophisticated weapons.

Sudan’s Sovereignty Council chairman and army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, however, has played down the possible impact of sanctions, saying they would neither affect Sudan nor weaken the armed forces’ resolve. He insisted the army would continue fighting until it retakes all areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces.

The contrast shows the political struggle surrounding the US proposal. Washington wants to convince both sides that the flow of weapons cannot remain open-ended, while Sudan’s military leadership continues to speak in terms of retaking territory by force. The RSF is likewise reinforcing its positions and relying on supply networks, weapons and drones.

The US premise is that the ability to rearm prolongs the war: As long as each side believes it can replace its losses and obtain more drones, ammunition, fuel and financing, its incentive to compromise remains limited. If supplies become more difficult and costly, military calculations could gradually shift toward a settlement.

Drone use has expanded significantly in recent months, with attacks extending beyond front lines to cities, markets, electricity and water facilities and health infrastructure. Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN's under secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, said sophisticated weapons, including drones, have become a major factor in increasing the war’s toll on civilians.

Restricting drones and their components, ammunition and heavy weapons could therefore yield an immediate humanitarian benefit by reducing long-range attacks, civilian casualties, displacement and disruption to hospitals and electricity and water networks, while improving humanitarian access.

But the plan’s success will depend on enforcement. The Darfur embargo, in place since 2005, failed to stop weapons from entering the region, exposing the limits of UN resolutions without effective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.

Opposition Welcomes Proposal

Sudanese civilian opposition forces welcomed the US proposal while stressing that it should be linked to a comprehensive political process.

Khalid Omer Yousif, a leader in the Sumoud alliance, said pressure on both warring parties should be part of an “integrated package” to end the fighting and restore the civilian political process, rather than an isolated punitive measure.

Yasir Arman, head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–Revolutionary Democratic Current, warned that piecemeal measures could lead to “managing the war rather than ending it,” calling for a joint African Union-UN roadmap to halt the fighting and preserve Sudan’s unity.

The real test of Washington’s seriousness will be whether it can move from a Security Council resolution to pursuing supply networks, including flights, land routes, brokers, companies and individuals facilitating the purchase and transfer of weapons to Sudan.

Washington does not appear to be relying on the embargo alone to end the war. Rather, the proposal is likely part of a broader effort to raise the cost of continued fighting while pushing for negotiations. US officials say the goal is not to hand victory to one side over the other, but to reduce both sides’ ability to wage an open-ended war.

Ultimately, the seriousness of the US effort will be measured by its willingness to pressure the parties’ backers, not only the Sudanese belligerents themselves. If weapons continue to flow, expanding the embargo will amount to little more than a legal framework with limited effect. But if combined with monitoring, sanctions and simultaneous diplomatic pressure to reopen negotiations, it could become one of the strongest international tools of pressure deployed since the war began.

At its core, the US proposal brings two opposing calculations into direct confrontation: Washington wants to make continuing the war harder and more costly, while both sides insist on fighting until they recover all territory. Between them, civilians stand to benefit most from any measure that genuinely reduces the flow of instruments of war, even before a comprehensive political settlement is reached.

 

 

 

Arab World

Syria Sentences to Death Former Regime Informant as Moscow Says Took in Assad on Humanitarian Grounds

The fourth Criminal Court of the transitional justice in Damascus sentences former regime informant Abdel Nasser Buraqi to death. (SANA)
The fourth Criminal Court of the transitional justice in Damascus sentences former regime informant Abdel Nasser Buraqi to death. (SANA)
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Syria Sentences to Death Former Regime Informant as Moscow Says Took in Assad on Humanitarian Grounds

The fourth Criminal Court of the transitional justice in Damascus sentences former regime informant Abdel Nasser Buraqi to death. (SANA)
The fourth Criminal Court of the transitional justice in Damascus sentences former regime informant Abdel Nasser Buraqi to death. (SANA)

The fourth Criminal Court of the transitional justice in Damascus issued on Thursday a death sentence against former regime informant Abdel Nasser Buraqi after convicting him of grave crimes during the rule of ousted President Bashar al-Assad.

The accusations include forced disappearance, denial of freedom, participation in murder, torture leading to death, theft and criminal defamation.

Lawyer Radif Mustafa, Director of the Accountability and Justice Department at the National Commission for Transitional Justice, told the state news agency SANA that the court relied on international law to characterize the offenses as war crimes and crimes against humanity, in line with the Constitutional Declaration, to determine the nature, gravity, and causes of the crimes. Meanwhile, the court based its sentencing on the provisions of Syrian national law

Mustafa said the court decided to merge the sentences and apply the harshest penalty, which is execution.

It upheld the provisional seizure of the convict's assets, converting it into an executive seizure, and denied him any discretionary mitigating circumstances due to the massive scale and gravity of the committed crimes, he said in a post on Facebook.

He added that the ruling was a "the first judicial precedent in Syria's history."

"While informants were protected during the era of the ousted regime, they are now facing justice. This is the group that harmed people the most," he stressed.

Meanwhile, internal security forces in Latakia announced the arrest of Major Generals Haitham Barakat and Marwan Barakat, both officers from the ousted regime, during an operation in the city of Qardaha.

This operation follows several similar ones across various governorates. Security forces in Daraa announced on August 15 the arrest of Musab Abu Rukba, a former regime lieutenant colonel in the Raqqa Political Security branch.

The forces said the arrests are part of counter-terrorism efforts aimed at strengthening security and stability.

Separately, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia granted Assad asylum on humanitarian grounds, not political ones.

Speaking at a press conference during which she was asked whether Moscow would turn him over to the new Syrian authorities, she replied: "There were and are no political grounds behind his stay in our country. The decision was made solely on humanitarian grounds: the dramatic circumstances of the change of power in Syria meant that he and his family faced death."

The authorities in Syria sentenced Assad to death in absentia earlier in August.

Arab World

Strong 6.0-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes in Gulf of Aden

The shallow quake hit at 12:07 am local time. (Reuters)
The shallow quake hit at 12:07 am local time. (Reuters)
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Strong 6.0-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes in Gulf of Aden

The shallow quake hit at 12:07 am local time. (Reuters)
The shallow quake hit at 12:07 am local time. (Reuters)

A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck Friday morning in the Gulf of Aden, between Somalia and Yemen, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.

The shallow quake hit at 12:07 am local time (2107 GMT Thursday), about 145 kilometers off the Somali coast, the USGS added.