Sisi Pledges to Improve Religious Rhetoric

Sisi gestures during an interview with Reuters in Cairo, Egypt in this May 14, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Sisi gestures during an interview with Reuters in Cairo, Egypt in this May 14, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
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Sisi Pledges to Improve Religious Rhetoric

Sisi gestures during an interview with Reuters in Cairo, Egypt in this May 14, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Sisi gestures during an interview with Reuters in Cairo, Egypt in this May 14, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has stressed that Egypt remains committed to its mission to improve religious rhetoric.

"This is a collaborative responsibility that requires concerted efforts so that we build together a bright and wise intellectual path … to face challenges and build the future state," Sisi said Sunday.

In a speech marking the Prophet’s birthday, the president urged religious authorities to double their efforts to spread tolerance and correct religious misconceptions.

Sisi noted that the message of Islam values knowledge and science, and that the first word in Quran is “read.”

He further underlined that awareness is a key factor for a nation’s stability and progress.

The president stressed the importance of confronting individuals who take the holy words out of context and those who seek to stray people away from performing "the divine commands of reconstruction and reform of the world in what is good for humanity as a whole."

For his part, Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayyeb shed light on the importance of saving Muslim communities from the inhumane conditions that have been imposed by "some people who claim they abide by the instructions of the Prophet, and his religion and jurisprudence, while they kill innocents."

Tayyeb slammed those individuals who "turn Allah's mosques to arenas for war where lives are lost, blood is shed, bodies shattered, and sanctities violated.”



Netanyahu Holds Security Briefing Atop Strategic Syrian Peak

An Israeli military helicopter flies over Mount Hermon on the border between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 17 December 2024. (EPA)
An Israeli military helicopter flies over Mount Hermon on the border between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 17 December 2024. (EPA)
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Netanyahu Holds Security Briefing Atop Strategic Syrian Peak

An Israeli military helicopter flies over Mount Hermon on the border between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 17 December 2024. (EPA)
An Israeli military helicopter flies over Mount Hermon on the border between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 17 December 2024. (EPA)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing Tuesday atop a strategic Syrian mountain inside the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights that Israel seized this month, the defense minister said.

Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and the heads of the armed forces and the domestic security agency visited "outposts at the summit of Mount Hermon for the first time since they were seized by the military", Katz's office said.

"The summit of Mount Hermon serves as Israel's eyes for identifying both near and distant threats," the defense minister said.

Netanyahu's office said the meeting took place on the "Hermon ridge" and said the premier "reviewed the (army's) deployment in the area and set guidelines for the future".

The prime minister ordered Israeli troops to seize the buffer zone as longtime strongman Bashar al-Assad's rule collapsed in Syria.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said the Israeli move was a violation of 1974 armistice which set up the zone to separate Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights following the previous year's Arab-Israeli war.

Israel has framed the move as temporary and defensive, with Netanyahu saying it was in response to a "vacuum on Israel's border and in the buffer zone".

Israeli forces have also been operating in areas beyond the buffer zone in Syrian-controlled territory, the military has confirmed.

Katz told the meeting of the importance of "completing preparations... for the possibility of a prolonged presence", the statement said.

He added that the summit of Mount Hermon, home to the world's highest UN observation post at 2,814 meters (9,232 feet) above sea level, provided "observation and deterrence" against both Hezbollah in Lebanon and opposition forces in Damascus.

Israel first occupied the Golan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community as a whole.