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Arab Foreign Ministers to Hold Extraordinary Meeting on Israel Crimes in Jerusalem

Palestinians pray on Laylat al-Qadr during the holy month of Ramadan, at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City, May 8, 2021. Reuters
Palestinians pray on Laylat al-Qadr during the holy month of Ramadan, at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City, May 8, 2021. Reuters
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Arab Foreign Ministers to Hold Extraordinary Meeting on Israel Crimes in Jerusalem

Palestinians pray on Laylat al-Qadr during the holy month of Ramadan, at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City, May 8, 2021. Reuters
Palestinians pray on Laylat al-Qadr during the holy month of Ramadan, at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City, May 8, 2021. Reuters

Arab League foreign ministers are scheduled to hold an extraordinary session next Tuesday to discuss the latest Israeli aggression in occupied Jerusalem.

“An extraordinary virtual session will be held at the level of Arab foreign ministers, at the request of Palestine in the wake of the current Israeli crimes and assaults against Palestinians and Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied city of Jerusalem and against worshipers during the Holy month of Ramadan,” the AL General Secretariat said Sunday in a statement.

It added that the meeting will discuss the “barbaric” Israeli aggressions and Israel’s plan to confiscate Palestinian property in East Jerusalem, particularly in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood with plans to seize homes belonging to Palestinian citizens and to empty the holy city of its Palestinian population and change the existing legal and historical status quo.

For his part, Assistant Secretary General of the Arab League, Hosam Zaki, said that the ministers are set to discuss the grave Israeli assaults against worshippers at Al-Aqsa as well as the forced expulsions of a number of Palestinian families from their houses in Sheikh Jarrah.

Zaki also noted that these assaults and expulsions fall within Israel’s systematic policy to obliterate the Palestinian identity of Jerusalem and change legal and historical status of its holy sites.

Since last week, friction has mounted in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, with nightly clashes in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah - a neighborhood where numerous Palestinian families face eviction

During the weekend, Palestine's Ambassador to Egypt and Permanent Representative to the Arab League Diab al-Louh said he requested an urgent meeting of the Arab League at the level of permanent representatives to discuss the latest Israeli violence in Jerusalem.

However, he said the meeting must bring about decisions and practical measures that can address this unprecedented catastrophic reality.

Therefore, Al-Louh urged the international community to provide the necessary protection for the Palestinian people against such systematic Israeli practices and continuous violations.

Last week, the Arab League had also called on the international community to intervene to prevent any forced evictions.

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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)
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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.