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PA President Says Ready to Negotiate on Final Status Issues

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (File Photo: Reuters)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (File Photo: Reuters)
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PA President Says Ready to Negotiate on Final Status Issues

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (File Photo: Reuters)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (File Photo: Reuters)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he is ready to negotiate the final status issues within a specified timeframe and based on the principle of the international law and the UN resolutions.

In a message sent to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Abbas called for the launch of an international conference for Middle East peace.

He indicated that holding such a conference would “pave the way to engage in a serious peace process based on international law, UN resolutions and relevant references.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Palestinian UN Mission in New York were assigned to conduct consultations and coordinate closely with the office of the Secretary-General to achieve this goal.

Abbas urged the Sec-Gen to hold urgent consultations in coordination with the Middle East Quartet and the UN Security Council (UNSC) on convening an international conference for Middle East peace with full powers and with the participation of all concerned parties.

The Quartet, comprised of the EU, Russia, the US, and the UN was established in 2002 to facilitate the Middle East Peace Process negotiations.

The conference “has to lead to an end to the Israeli occupation and help the Palestinian people achieve their freedom and independence within the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the 1967 borders, and resolving all final status issues, particularly the refugees' issue, based on the UNGA Resolution 194,” Abbas was quoted by Wafa news agency.

He underscored the importance of launching a peace process to achieve the two-state solution, stressing the need to formulate a multilateral approach to end the conflict through the conference.

The majority of the superpowers called for supporting Palestine's proposal presented during Abbas' speech before the UN General Assembly’s session, according to the President.

The superpowers called on the Sec-Gen to start preparing at the beginning of next year for an international conference for peace in the Middle East based on international law and UN resolutions in order to resume negotiations based on the adopted international terms of reference.

Abbas sent his message to Guterres, after his initiative to launch an international peace conference was supported at the Security Council’s meeting held Monday.

The Security Council's approval presents the support Palestinians need to hold an international conference as an alternative to President Donald Trump's so-called “peace plan.”

Abbas tried to persuade multiple countries to adopt his position and call for an international peace conference.


The Palestinians want to launch an international conference attended by the Quartet and other countries to launch a multilateral mechanism to sponsor negotiations with the Israelis, based on Security Council Resolution 1515, which states that the Palestinian land was occupied in 1967.


In August, the PA informed the Quartet of its intention to return to negotiations with the Arab peace plan as a reference.


In a letter addressed to the Quartet, the PA reiterated “we are ready to have our state with a limited number of weapons and a powerful police force to uphold law and order.”


The PA also indicated that it would accept an international force mandated by the UN to monitor compliance with any eventual peace treaty, hinting at NATO.


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Former Israeli Spies Describe Attack Using Exploding Electronic Devices against Lebanon’s Hezbollah

An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
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Former Israeli Spies Describe Attack Using Exploding Electronic Devices against Lebanon’s Hezbollah

An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)
An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon amid ongoing cross-border tensions between Israel and Hezbollah fighters. (Photo by Anwar AMRO / AFP)

Two recently retired senior Israeli intelligence agents shared new details about a deadly clandestine operation years in the making that targeted Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and Syria using exploding pagers and walkie talkies three months ago.
Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war, The Associated Press said.
The agents spoke with CBS “60 Minutes” in a segment aired Sunday night. They wore masks and spoke with altered voices to hide their identities.
One agent said the operation started 10 years ago using walkie-talkies laden with hidden explosives, which Hezbollah didn't realize it was buying from Israel, its enemy. The walkie-talkies were not detonated until September, a day after booby-trapped pagers were set off.
“We created a pretend world,” said the officer, who went by the name “Michael.”
Phase two of the plan, using the booby-trapped pagers, kicked in in 2022 after Israel's Mossad intelligence agency learned Hezbollah had been buying pagers from a Taiwan-based company, the second officer said.
The pagers had to be made slightly larger to accommodate the explosives hidden inside. They were tested on dummies multiple times to find the right amount of explosive that would hurt only the Hezbollah fighter and not anyone else in close proximity.
Mossad also tested numerous ring tones to find one that sounded urgent enough to make someone pull the pager out of their pocket.
The second agent, who went by the name “Gabriel,” said it took two weeks to convince Hezbollah to switch to the heftier pager, in part by using false ads on YouTube promoting the devices as dustproof, waterproof, providing a long battery life and more.
He described the use of shell companies, including one based in Hungary, to dupe the Taiwanese firm, Gold Apollo, into unknowingly partnering with the Mossad.
Hezbollah also was unaware it was working with Israel.
Gabriel compared the ruse to a 1998 psychological film about a man who has no clue that he is living in a false world and his family and friends are actors paid to keep up the illusion.
“When they are buying from us, they have zero clue that they are buying from the Mossad,” Gabriel said. “We make like ‘Truman Show,’ everything is controlled by us behind the scene. In their experience, everything is normal. Everything was 100% kosher including businessman, marketing, engineers, showroom, everything.”
By September, Hezbollah militants had 5,000 pagers in their pockets.
Israel triggered the attack on Sept. 17, when pagers all over Lebanon started beeping. The devices would explode even if the person failed to push the buttons to read an incoming encrypted message.
The next day, Mossad activated the walkie-talkies, some of which exploded at funerals for some of the approximately 30 people who were killed in the pager attacks.
Gabriel said the goal was more about sending a message than actually killing Hezbollah fighters.
“If he just died, so he’s dead. But if he’s wounded, you have to take him to the hospital, take care of him. You need to invest money and efforts,” he said. “And those people without hands and eyes are living proof, walking in Lebanon, of ‘don’t mess with us.’ They are walking proof of our superiority all around the Middle East.”
In the days after the attack, Israel's air force hit targets across Lebanon, killing thousands. Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated when Israel dropped bombs on his bunker.
By November, the war between Israel and Hezbollah, a byproduct of the deadly attack by Hamas group in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, ended with a ceasefire. More than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants, health officials have said.
The agent using the name “Michael” said that the day after the pager explosions, people in Lebanon were afraid to turn on their air conditioners out of fear that they would explode, too.
“There is real fear,” he said.
Asked if that was intentional, he said, “We want them to feel vulnerable, which they are. We can’t use the pagers again because we already did that. We’ve already moved on to the next thing. And they’ll have to keep on trying to guess what the next thing is.”