Israel, 'Jihad' Exchange Threats, Netanyahu Vows ‘Tough Response’

A member of Palestinian security forces loyal to Hamas gestures while searching for missing or dead militants after Israel blew up a cross-border tunnel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip November 3, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A member of Palestinian security forces loyal to Hamas gestures while searching for missing or dead militants after Israel blew up a cross-border tunnel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip November 3, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
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Israel, 'Jihad' Exchange Threats, Netanyahu Vows ‘Tough Response’

A member of Palestinian security forces loyal to Hamas gestures while searching for missing or dead militants after Israel blew up a cross-border tunnel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip November 3, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A member of Palestinian security forces loyal to Hamas gestures while searching for missing or dead militants after Israel blew up a cross-border tunnel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip November 3, 2017. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

For the second time in less than 12 hours, Israel threatened both the Islamic Jihad and Hamas to violently retaliate to any plans or attempts to carry out attacks in response to the bombing of the tunnel on the Gaza Strip border last month, which killed 12 militants from the two movements, including five whose bodies were taken by the Israeli army.
 
These new threats come as calm prevails in the Gaza Strip due to the role assumed by Egypt in preventing the deterioration of the situation for the sake of the success of the Palestinian reconciliation.
 
Speaking at the beginning of a Cabinet session on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to harshly respond to any attack perpetrated by the Palestinian Islamist movements against Israeli areas.
 
“There are those who are still manipulating the idea of launching new attacks on Israel. We will respond harshly to anyone who tries to attack us from any front,” he stated.
 
“I mean all parties, whether factions or organizations, and we will hold (Hamas) responsible for any attack launched against us from the Gaza Strip,” he added.
 
Netanyahu’s remarks came few hours after the Israeli army’s coordinator of government activities, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, warned in a video that Islamic Jihad “will be playing with fire” if it retaliated for the destruction of the tunnel.
 
The Arabic video posted by Mordechai said: “We’re aware of the plot that Palestinian Islamic Jihad is concocting against Israel.”
 
“It is playing with fire on the backs of residents of the Gaza Strip, and at the expense of the internal Palestinian reconciliation and the entire region,” it added.
 
The Israeli army’s coordinator went on to say in his video: “Just to be clear, Israel will respond forcefully and resolutely to any Islamic Jihad reaction whatsoever — not just against Jihad, but also against Hamas.”
 
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Political Analyst Mustafa Ibrahim said that Israel was seeking to distort the Palestinian reconciliation and accuse Hamas and the Islamic Jihad of working for Iranian interests.
 
For his part, Fawzi Barhoum, spokesman for Hamas, said that the recent threats have reflected the Israeli state of panic and confusion towards the reaction of the resistance to the crime of targeting the Palestinians. He added in a brief statement: “The valiant resistance will always stand ready to assume its duty to protect our people and impede the occupation equations.”



France Calls on the EU to Pressure Israel to Come to the Table on Palestinian Two-State Solution 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot speaks during a conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians at UN headquarters on July 28, 2025 in New York City. (AFP)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot speaks during a conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians at UN headquarters on July 28, 2025 in New York City. (AFP)
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France Calls on the EU to Pressure Israel to Come to the Table on Palestinian Two-State Solution 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot speaks during a conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians at UN headquarters on July 28, 2025 in New York City. (AFP)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot speaks during a conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians at UN headquarters on July 28, 2025 in New York City. (AFP)

France on Monday called on the European Union to pressure Israel to agree to a two-state solution with the Palestinians, the latest escalation from the French as they seek an end to the deadly Gaza war days after pledging to recognize Palestine as a state.

Jean-Noel Barrot, the French foreign minister, told reporters at the United Nations that while there is international consensus that the time for a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now, world powers need to back up their words with actions.

“The European Commission, on behalf of the EU, has to express its expectations and show the means that we can incentivize the Israeli government to hear this appeal,” he said.

Barrot spoke on the first day of a high-level UN meeting on a two-state solution to the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which is being co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France.

The conference, which was postponed from June and downgraded to the ministerial level, is taking place in New York as international condemnation of Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza reaches a fever pitch. Both Israel and its closest ally, the United States, refused to participate in the meeting, which Barrot said is being attended by representatives of 125 countries, including 50 ministers.

The aim of the conference, Barrot said, is “to reverse the trend of what is happening in the region — mainly the erasure of the two-state solution, which has been for a long time the only solution that can bring peace and security in the region.”

He urged the European Commission to call on Israel to lift a financial blockade on 2 billion euros he says the Israeli government owes the Palestinian Authority, stop settlement building in the West Bank, which threatens the territorial integrity of a future Palestinian state, and end the “militarized” food delivery system in Gaza by the Israeli-backed US Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has resulted in hundreds of killings.

Dubravka Šuica, the European Commissioner for the Mediterranean, told the meeting the EU is examining new sanctions and said it’s “imperative” that Israel transfer money owed to the Palestinians, and allow the delivery of food and other aid to Gaza.

She said the EU has been a long-term partner promoting reforms of the Palestinian Authority and welcomed the recent announcement of presidential and general elections within a year across the Palestinian territories. “We are keeping the Palestinian Authority from financial collapse,” she said, underscoring that the EU is supporting it with 161.6 billion euros for the next three years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the two-state solution on both nationalistic and security grounds. The US has echoed that sentiment and on Monday called the conference “unproductive and ill-timed.”

Ahead of the meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognize Palestine as a state at the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly in September. The bold but mostly symbolic move is aimed at adding diplomatic pressure on Israel.

France is now the biggest Western power and the only member of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations to recognize the state of Palestine, and the move could pave the way for other countries to do the same. More than 140 countries recognize a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe.

At the conference opening, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa called for all countries that have not yet recognized Palestine as a state to do so “without delay.”

“The path to peace begins by recognizing the state of Palestine and preserving it from destruction,” he said.

With global anger rising over desperately hungry people in Gaza starting to die from starvation, US President Donald Trump on Monday called for increasing aid to Palestinians, a rare glimpse of daylight between him and Netanyahu, who has said there is no starvation.

Both Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah and Barrot said Monday that the US is an essential actor in the region and that it was the American president in January who secured the only ceasefire in the 21-month war.

“I am firmly in the belief that Trump’s engagement can be a catalyst for an end to the immediate crisis in Gaza and potentially a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the long term,” Prince Faisal said.