Hamas Appointing Municipal Administrations in Gaza Sparks Controversyhttps://english.aawsat.com/home/article/1836121/hamas-appointing-municipal-administrations-gaza-sparks-controversy
Hamas Appointing Municipal Administrations in Gaza Sparks Controversy
A Palestinian woman reads a local newspaper
Hamas appointing new administrations for the municipalities councils in Gaza has raised a Palestinian debate amid concerns of widening the internal division that has been ongoing for 12 years.
Gaza municipality announced two days ago appointing Yahya Sarraj as a new president – the municipality said that the new president would hold consultations with the competent committees and the city dignitaries and those concerned with naming the members of the municipal council.
Undersecretary of the Ministry of Local Government Ibrahim Radwan said that adopting this way in electing a new president came amid continuous disruption of holding local elections.
The election process witnessed the participation of elites from the community in addition to representatives from institutions, local authorities, syndicates, and universities, Radwan added.
Gaza municipality is the second biggest councils on the Palestinian territories in regards to the population, with around 1,800 employees and the highest revenues on the level of the Strip.
The German news agency (dpa) reported that Hamas authorities appointed a new president for Fatah municipality, in the far south of Gaza Strip. At the beginning of 2018, they appointed a president for Khan Yunis.
Gaza Strip didn’t witness elections for the municipal council since 2005, while the West Bank held municipal elections between 2011-2017 without the Strip due to internal disputes.
The appointment of municipal administrations in Gaza Strip - without elections- was met with criticism by Palestinian factions especially Fatah – led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Fatah Revolutionary Council Member Mohammad al-Lahham stated that Hamas imposes its leaders on Gaza Strip municipalities away from any form of democracy or accord with the organizations and the civil community.
Iyad Awadallah, an official from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that this way of choosing president for Gaza municipality strikes the essence of the democratic process.
Gifted Students Complex in Marib: From the Heart of War to Building the Futurehttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5291122-gifted-students-complex-marib-heart-war-building-future
Gifted Students Complex in Marib: From the Heart of War to Building the Future
More than 200 high-achieving students have enrolled at the complex since its official opening in 2024 (Asharq Al-Awsat)
In a city more familiar with rockets than school bells, a different morning begins at the Model Complex for Gifted Students in Marib.
Built and fully funded by the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen, the complex is now home to dozens of students studying science and mathematics, a scene that captures the triumph of knowledge over years of war.
Four years ago, at the height of Houthi attacks on Marib in 2022, Asharq Al-Awsat visited the site for the first time. The building was then in its final stages of preparation, while nearby neighborhoods, including al-Rawda and al-Matar, were under repeated Houthi ballistic missile fire.
One missile struck a house only about 500 meters from the gifted students’ center, offering a stark image of two opposing projects: one that builds people, and another that destroys them.
Even as the war reached one of its fiercest stages, the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen pushed ahead. What seemed at the time like an educational gamble in the middle of a battlefield has become one of Yemen’s clearest examples of investment in people.
The center was no ordinary education project. It was a dream long held by Sheikh Sultan al-Arada, vice president of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council and governor of Marib. He recalled proposing the idea to the Saudi Ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed Al-Jaber, who quickly approved the establishment and full equipping of the project.
When Asharq Al-Awsat returned to the center, the scene had changed completely. The building that stood silent in 2022 under the shadow of war was alive with students. Laboratories were busy, and classrooms echoed with discussion and scientific experiments.
Since its official opening in 2024, more than 200 high-achieving students have enrolled at the center. Many come from different Yemeni provinces after the war forced their families to flee to Marib.
Here, in a city often described as the last line of defense for the republic, Saudi Arabia is fighting a different kind of battle: a battle to build minds, based on the belief that rebuilding people comes before rebuilding nations.
Dr. Mohammed al-Qairi, director of the gifted students’ complex in Marib, said the center’s opening in 2024 marked a turning point for quality education in the province. Demand, he said, exceeded expectations from the first day.
He told Asharq Al-Awsat that 246 students applied for the first intake, with only 120 selected after a series of scientific tests.
Dr. Mohammed al-Qairi, director of the gifted students’ complex in Marib (Asharq Al-Awsat)
In the current academic year, 213 students applied and only 90 were admitted, after the administration decided to reduce admissions to focus more closely on the quality of educational outcomes.
Qairi said the complex no longer serves Marib alone. It now represents all of Yemen, bringing together students who fled with their families from most Yemeni provinces and turning Marib into a wartime hub for the country’s scientific elite.
Applicants sit rigorous tests in Arabic, English, mathematics and science, as well as a special intelligence assessment. To remain at the complex, students must maintain an average of at least 80 percent.
The complex's students achieved first and second place in Physics and Chemistry during the scientific forum in Marib (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Qairi said Marib had long been seen as distant from quality education projects, and few had imagined it would host a model school for top-performing students of this standard.
“We had a limited experience in the capital Sanaa, but establishing a complex for gifted students in Marib was not something anyone expected,” he said.
“What has been achieved here came thanks to the support of our brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, whose role was not limited to implementing service projects, but extended to investing in people. The gifted students’ complex was one of the most important of these projects,” he added.
Applicants sit rigorous tests in Arabic, English, mathematics and science, as well as a special intelligence assessment (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The complex currently teaches students in the first and second years of secondary school. Preparations are underway to open the third secondary year next year, a step those in charge describe as the first real test of the experiment.
Their ambition is clear: to see their students rank among the top performers in the Republic of Yemen.
Although the project is still new, results have come quickly. Students from the complex won first place in physics at the Marib province level and second place in chemistry at the scientific forum, achievements that project officials see as an early sign of success.
“We are still at the beginning of the road, but we aspire for this complex to become a factory for the top students of the republic, and a model to be followed in the rest of the provinces,” Qairi said.
The complex marked a turning point in the journey of quality education in Marib Governorate (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The ambitions are not limited to male students. Qairi said plans would soon be announced to establish a similar complex for high-achieving female students, widening access to quality education.
He said the building is equipped with classrooms, laboratories, furniture and administrative equipment, but still needs supporting facilities, including shaded areas to protect students from the heat and the completion of a guard room.
Such needs, he said, do not diminish the value of the project, but would strengthen its educational environment.
“In a country exhausted by war, discovering a gifted student or preparing a researcher, doctor, or engineer, becomes another form of reconstruction,” he said.
Sources to Asharq Al-Awsat: Hamas Submits Response to Mladenov Amendments, Expects Rejectionhttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5290949-sources-asharq-al-awsat-hamas-submits-response-mladenov-amendments-expects
Mourners attend the funeral of three Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday. (Reuters)
Sources to Asharq Al-Awsat: Hamas Submits Response to Mladenov Amendments, Expects Rejection
Mourners attend the funeral of three Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday. (Reuters)
Asharq Al-Awsat has learned that the Hamas delegation that arrived in Cairo on Tuesday handed mediators its response to amendments submitted to the movement on June 17 by Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza.
Two senior Hamas sources and two sources from Palestinian factions involved in the talks told Asharq Al-Awsat about some details of the response.
One source described the changes as mainly “minor amendments” to the reply Hamas and the factions had submitted to mediators and Mladenov on June 15.
Mladenov later amended that reply and returned it to the movement and the factions for further review. The sources, however, did not sound optimistic that Mladenov would respond positively or accept the latest changes.
Among the initial details obtained by Asharq Al-Awsat from the four sources, who spoke separately, was that Hamas renewed its demand for “all dues to be paid to employees who had worked in its government.”
The demand rejects Mladenov’s earlier amendment, which limited the commitment to those who would work under the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza from the moment it begins its duties, rather than to any previous period.
‘Infrastructure’
The sources provided consistent accounts of the response to Clause 8, which addresses the inventory and storage of weapons.
They said Hamas removed the term “infrastructure,” which Mladenov had added in his amendments and defined at the time as including “tunnels, weapons depots, and weapons manufacturing workshops.”
The sources said the factions want the weapons clause implemented in a “gradual and sequential” manner, according to a timetable to be carried out within 14 days of agreement on the paper.
Hamas also stressed in its response that the issue should be tied to “a clear political track on Palestinians’ self-determination and guarantees of their sovereign rights.”
A Hamas source and a Palestinian factional source said the amendments to those two clauses, along with other provisions, were made “slightly,” following Hamas contacts with factions over the past few days aimed at producing a unified response.
But the factional source said Hamas “did not actually consult the factions directly,” although a meeting in Egypt had been placed on the agenda before the response was submitted. They added that “a meeting between Hamas and the factions will be held within two days.”
Notably, Hamas sent a leadership delegation to Cairo headed by Zaher Jabarin, a member of the movement’s political bureau, a member of the negotiating delegation and head of its West Bank bureau.
Such a move was unusual, and faction activists saw it as a sign of Hamas frustration with Mladenov’s repeated amendments.
A senior Hamas source told Asharq Al-Awsat: “Either we reach new approaches, the mediators find other solutions, or we return to disputes as before.”
Another factional source struck a similar tone, saying they expected “Mladenov, as well as Israel, to reject these amendments from the factions.”
That, they said, could return the situation to where it was, despite Israel’s threat to expand its operations in Gaza and what the Board of Peace has promoted as steps it could take separately from any agreement with Hamas.
Israel Defense Minister Says Troops to Stay ‘Indefinitely’ in Lebanon, Syria, Gazahttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5290792-israel-defense-minister-says-troops-stay-%E2%80%98indefinitely%E2%80%99-lebanon-syria-gaza
Israeli soldiers drive in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP)
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Israel Defense Minister Says Troops to Stay ‘Indefinitely’ in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza
Israeli soldiers drive in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP)
Israel's defense minister said Wednesday that Israeli forces would remain in self-proclaimed "security zones" established in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, without any timeline for withdrawal.
"The Israeli army will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza indefinitely in order to protect our residents and communities from jihadist elements," Israel Katz said.
"We will not withdraw from the security zones," Katz said at function held in honor of Israeli soldiers killed during the 2006 war in Lebanon.
Katz also reiterated an earlier warning to Iran, saying Tehran would be struck with "full force" if it attacked Israel over its operations in Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon signed a US-sponsored framework agreement under US sponsorship on Friday to pave the way for peace between the two countries and disarm Iran-backed group Hezbollah.
Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have repeatedly ruled out withdrawing troops from southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces continue to clash with Hezbollah fighters.
They maintain that any troop withdrawal would happen only after Hezbollah has been disarmed across Lebanon.
Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war in early March with rocket fire aimed at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.
Israel responded with massive airstrikes and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
According to Lebanon's health ministry, nearly 4,300 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the war erupted.
The Israeli military says it has lost 38 soldiers and one civilian contractor in Lebanon since fighting began in early March.
Israel has also carried out repeated incursions and bombings in Syria since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, saying it seeks to establish a demilitarized zone in the country's south.
In Gaza, Israeli forces occupy nearly 70 percent of the territory.
Both the Palestinian movement Hamas and the Israeli military accuse each other of violating the ceasefire, which has been in effect since October last year.
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