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Abbas Accuses Israel of Stealing ‘Land and Water’ in Palestine

Abbas shakes hands with Levits ahead of their meeting in Ramallah on Wednesday (Reuters)
Abbas shakes hands with Levits ahead of their meeting in Ramallah on Wednesday (Reuters)
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Abbas Accuses Israel of Stealing ‘Land and Water’ in Palestine

Abbas shakes hands with Levits ahead of their meeting in Ramallah on Wednesday (Reuters)
Abbas shakes hands with Levits ahead of their meeting in Ramallah on Wednesday (Reuters)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called on the European Union (EU) and its member states to refrain from dealing with any Israeli government that doesn’t recognize the two-state solution on the basis of international legitimacy.

Abbas further called on Wednesday abstaining from dealing with any Israeli government that doesn’t renounce violence and terrorism.

This seems like a preemptive war against the upcoming right-wing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

Speaking before the 4th Arab Water Conference, Abbas accused Israel of stealing Palestinian land and water.

Abbas said during a joint press conference with Latvian President Egils Levits at the presidency headquarters in Ramallah that there is a lack of an Israeli partner who believes in the two-state solution, and renounces violence and terrorism.

He highlighted that these are the principles Palestine is committed to.

The Palestinian president further urged all countries that haven’t yet recognized the State of Palestine to do so in order to protect the two-state solution and the right of the Palestinians to self-determination.

The president's demands coincided with Netanyahu’s attempts to form a right-wing government.

Meanwhile, Ziad Abu Amr, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, delivered Abbas’ speech at the 4th Arab Water Conference.

The conference was organized by Palestine at the Arab League in Cairo and held under the theme "Arab water security for life, development, and peace".

He said that the occupation state is stealing the land, and building settlements on it and is stealing the water and selling it to the Palestinians.

The Palestinian president gave the Dead Sea as an example of trespassing, noting that it is collapsing year after year.

He spoke about the consequences of the Israeli seizure of the water resources, noting that the Palestinian share stands at an average of 87 liters per day and doesn’t exceed 20 liters in some communities compared to 580 liters per day for the Israeli settler.

Abbas considered water as an “Arab national security matter” that requires a comprehensive and unified Arab strategy against the occupation.

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Arab World

UN Envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen Resigns

FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
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UN Envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen Resigns

FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)

The United Nations special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, unexpectedly resigned on Thursday after almost seven years as the organization's representative to the war-torn country.

"I wish to let the council know that I have informed the secretary-general of my intention to step down after more than six-and-a-half years serving as United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, and he has graciously accepted my request," Pedersen told a meeting of the UN Security Council on Syria.

"It has been my intention for quite some time to move on for personal reasons after a long period of service," Pedersen told the 15-member council. "My experience in Syria has affirmed an enduring truth - that sometimes it's darkest before the dawn. For so long, progress seemed absolutely impossible, until suddenly it came."

Syrian president Bashar Assad was ousted in December.

"Few have endured suffering as profound as the Syrians, and few have demonstrated such resilience and determination," Pedersen said.

"Today, Syria and the Syrian people have a new dawn, and we must ensure that this becomes a bright day. They deserve this so much," he added.

“Being a special envoy for any conflict, let alone one that we Syrians know, is no easy job," Syria's UN Ambassador Ibrahim Olabi told the Security Council, adding that Pedersen "departs on a note of hope, on a success story."

He said Syria looks forward to "engaging with the Secretary-General and all of you in working with his successor in a way that preserves Syrian sovereignty and fulfills the aspiration of the Syrian people."

Arab World

Gunman Kills 2 at Israeli-run Crossing between West Bank, Jordan

Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
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Gunman Kills 2 at Israeli-run Crossing between West Bank, Jordan

Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the Israeli-Occupied West Bank and Jordan, September 18, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon

A gunman killed two people at an Israeli-run border crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan on Thursday, officials said.

The Israeli military referred to it as a militant attack and said that the shooter arrived on a truck transporting humanitarian aid. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said that two men, around 60 and 20 years old, were killed. The military said the attacker had been “neutralized," without elaborating, The AP news reported

Three Israelis were killed in a September 2024 attack at the crossing, when a retired Jordanian soldier opened fire. That attack appeared to be linked to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The Allenby Bridge Crossing over the Jordan River, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, is mainly used by Palestinians and tourists. It was closed after the attack.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for a future state. Violence has surged across the occupied West Bank since the Hamas-led attack from Gaza into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the latest war.

Israel is waging a major ground offensive in Gaza City that has forced nearly 250,000 Palestinians to flee, according to the United Nations. Hundreds of thousands remain in the city, large parts of which have already been destroyed in previous Israeli raids.

Arab World

Israel Says it Attacked Hezbollah Targets in South Lebanon

A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
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Israel Says it Attacked Hezbollah Targets in South Lebanon

A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
A picture taken from northern Israel along the border with southern Lebanon shows smoke billowing above south Lebanon during Israeli bombardment on October 4, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)

Israel said on Thursday it had launched fresh airstrikes against Hezbollah military targets in south Lebanon to stop the group rebuilding in the area.

Israel's military confirmed in a statement that unspecified attacks were underway after earlier saying it would hit Hezbollah military infrastructure "in response to the group’s unlawful attempts to rebuild its activities in the area."

It warned residents of three villages to evacuate.

"We direct an urgent warning to the residents of the buildings marked in red... to evacuate those buildings," the military's Arabic-language spokesman Colonel Avichay Adraee wrote on X. He provided maps of the three Lebanese villages of Mays al-Jabal, Kfar Tebnit and Dibbine.

Lebanon's state news agency NNA confirmed strikes in the area. There was no immediate reaction from Hezbollah, or word on any damage or casualties.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said the evacuation warning contradicted international peace efforts.

Lebanon's government was committed to halting hostilities and engaged in meetings to ensure implementation of a UN resolution that ended a round of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, Salam said in a post on X.

The US brokered a truce in November between Lebanon and Israel after more than a year of conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, but Israel has continued sporadically to attack Hezbollah across the border.

Lebanon is under pressure to disarm the group.

Hezbollah has said it would be a serious misstep even to discuss disarmament while Israel is continuing airstrikes on Lebanon and occupying swaths of territory in its south.