Rabat Hosts Morocco-US Defense Consultative Committee's 11th Session

People stand near an empty street with closed shops in the old city, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Rabat, Morocco on March 23, 2020. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal/File Photo
People stand near an empty street with closed shops in the old city, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Rabat, Morocco on March 23, 2020. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal/File Photo
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Rabat Hosts Morocco-US Defense Consultative Committee's 11th Session

People stand near an empty street with closed shops in the old city, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Rabat, Morocco on March 23, 2020. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal/File Photo
People stand near an empty street with closed shops in the old city, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Rabat, Morocco on March 23, 2020. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal/File Photo

The Morocco-US Defense Consultative Committee (DCC) convened its 11th session this Tuesday at the headquarters of the National Defense Administration.

The meeting is held every two years alternately in Rabat and Washington, and is part of bilateral military cooperation which mainly focuses on the areas of training, military equipment and logistics.

Morocco’s Minister Delegate for National Defense Administration Abdellatif Loudyi and US Under-Secretary of Defense in charge of Political Affairs Anthony Tata co-chaired the session.
Tata is on a three-day working visit to Morocco at the head of a large military delegation.

The two officials expressed their satisfaction with the strength, excellence, and sustainability of the privileged ties and the exceptional strategic partnership between the US and the Kingdom of Morocco, said a statement issued by the General Staff of the Royal Armed Forces (FAR).

They also highlighted their ambition to further develop these long-standing relations in the same spirit of friendship, mutual understanding and shared trust, it said.

The two officials stressed the importance of the decision of the US administration to recognize Morocco’s full sovereignty over the entire region of the Moroccan Sahara. This recognition makes the Moroccan autonomy initiative the only realistic, serious, and pragmatic solution to the regional conflict over the Kingdom's southern provinces.

Further, the two sides underlined that this historic event will certainly have a positive impact on the geostrategy of the region as well as on peace, stability, security, and economic integration in the Maghreb, the Sahel and the Middle East.

Loudyi highlighted the importance of consolidating military cooperation with the US, inviting the US Department of Defense to further explore collaboration opportunities for the establishment in Morocco of joint defense industry projects.

Afterward, a plenary session attended by members of the US delegation, the Commander of the Royal Gendarmerie and the heads of the organs of the General Staff of the FAR, was held to discuss Moroccan-American military cooperation and the prospects for its development.

To this end, the two delegations discussed the various aspects and orientations to ensure interoperability.



Israeli Army Bombards Homes in North Gaza, Airstrike Kills 15, Medics Say

A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
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Israeli Army Bombards Homes in North Gaza, Airstrike Kills 15, Medics Say

A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)

Israeli forces bombarded houses in overnight attacks in the northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 15 people in one of the buildings in the town of Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medics said on Monday.

Several others were wounded in the attack and others were missing after a house providing shelter to displaced people was struck, with rescue workers unable immediately to reach them, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.

The three barely operational hospitals in the area were unable to cope with the number of wounded, they added.

Clusters of houses were bombed and some set ablaze in Jabalia and in Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, where the Israeli army has been operating for several weeks, residents said.

They said Israeli drones had dropped bombs outside a school sheltering displaced families, suggesting this was intended to scare them into leaving.

The Palestinians say Israel's army is trying to clear people out of the northern edge of Gaza with forced evacuations and bombardments to create a buffer zone. The Israeli army denies this.

The Israeli military, which began its offensive against Hamas in Gaza after the group's attack on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, has said its latest operations in northern Gaza are meant to prevent militants regrouping and waging attacks from those areas.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,400 people and displaced most of the population, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the enclave lie in ruins.

About 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage in the Hamas attack on the October 2023 attack on Israel, according to Israeli tallies.

NEW CEASEFIRE PUSH

Israel agreed a ceasefire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah last week, but the conflict in Gaza has continued.

Officials in Cairo have hosted talks between Hamas and the rival Fatah group led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the possible establishment of a committee to run post-war Gaza.

Egypt has proposed that a committee made up of non-partisan technocrat figures, and supervised by Abbas's authority, should be ready to run Gaza straight after the war ends. Israel has said Hamas should have no role in governance.

An official close to the talks said progress had been made but no final deal had been reached. Israel's approval would be decisive in determining whether the committee could fulfill its role. Egyptian security officials have also held talks with Hamas on ways to reach a ceasefire with Israel.

A Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters Hamas stood by its condition that any agreement must bring an end to the war and involve an Israeli troop withdrawal out, but would show the flexibility needed to achieve that.

Israel has said the war will end only when Hamas no longer governs Gaza and poses no threat to Israelis.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Sunday there was some indication of progress towards a hostage deal but that Israel's conditions for ending the war had not changed.

White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said he thought the chances of a ceasefire and hostage deal were now more likely.