world news
Rubio tells Egypt of need to cooperate to stop Hamas governing Gaza again
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Egypt’s foreign minister on Tuesday it was important to ensure Hamas terrorists can never govern Gaza again, the State Department said, with their call coming after President Donald Trump suggested Egypt and Jordan should take more Palestinians.
Trump on Saturday floated a plan to “clean out” Gaza, where Israel’s war has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis, in comments that echoed long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes.
The suggestion by Trump was not mentioned in the US State Department statement released on Tuesday after the call between Rubio and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.
Jordan and Egypt had pushed back over the weekend after Trump’s comments that they should take in Palestinians from Gaza. Asked if this was a temporary or long-term solution, Trump had said: “Could be either.”“He (Rubio) also reinforced the importance of holding Hamas accountable,” the State Department said after Tuesday’s call.
“The Secretary reiterated the importance of close cooperation to advance post-conflict planning to ensure Hamas can never govern Gaza or threaten Israel again.”
Context
Rubio held a call a day earlier with Jordan’s King Abdullah, and the US statement after that call, too, did not mention Trump’s remarks on Palestinian displacement.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
An Israeli aircraft attacked in the Tulkarm area as part of an IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) joint operation, the military announced on Monday.
Later reports in Israeli media clarified that the airstrike occurred in the Nur a-Shams refugee camp.
Footage from the scene indicates that a car was destroyed, leading to an explosive fire with a pillar of smoke rising into the sky.
Two Palestinians were in the vehicle at the time of the airstrike, according to Palestinians quoted in Israeli media.The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that one of the passengers was killed and the other was moderately injured, according to Israeli media reports.
Wider context
This comes amid the IDF’s Operation Iron Wall, aiming to remove Palestinian terrorists from Jenin and the wider area.
The IDF began a wide-ranging operation on Palestinian terror in Jenin last Tuesday, killing several terrorists in the mission meant to last a minimum of several days and potentially much longer.
The campaign, dubbed “Operation Iron Wall,” includes drones and helicopter air support. There were also reportedly tanks in the vicinity – although not entering Jenin – and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Duvdevan, Egoz, other special forces, and engineering forces from Battalion 90 were all involved.
The Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) stated that China, Israel, and Myanmar are the “world’s three worst offenders” for imprisoning journalists in 2024, according to a report published by the organization on Thursday.
The report stated that while other egregious offenders, such as China, Myanmar, Belarus, and Russia, “routinely rank among the top jailers of journalists,” Israel rarely appeared in CPJ censuses before the October 7 massacre.
According to the report, Israel rose to second place as it “tried to silence coverage from the occupied Palestinian territories,” adding that “all detained by Israel on the day of CPJ’s census are Palestinian.” The CPJ report claims that 43 Palestinian journalists were held in Israeli custody as of December 1, 2024.
The report did not take into account that Israel has regularly discovered journalists either embedded with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, linked alleged journalists directly as members of terror groups, or killed terrorists whose journalistic ties are later revealed.However, the report did not focus exclusively on Israel but rather on the general increase of authoritarian arrests of journalists across the world, criticizing the authorities in China, Myanmar, Russia, and Belarus, respectively, to an equal extent.
“At least 10 journalists” are held in administrative detention centers where prisoners are subjected to “inhuman conditions,” the report added.
Lawyers who visited some of the detainees told CPJ that Israeli authorities informed the journalists that they were arrested because they had contacted individuals whom Israel wanted information about.
Such arrests are “symptomatic of Israel’s broader effort to prevent coverage of its actions in Gaza,” according to the report. CPJ also reported that Israel banned foreign correspondents from entering Gaza and banned Al Jazeera.
Other CPJ reports discussing Israel
CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna was quoted in a report titled Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war that “Journalists have been paying the highest price – their lives – for their reporting” since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
CPJ stated in the report that IDF spokespeople repeatedly tell media outlets that IDF policy does not deliberately target journalists and added that IDF reportedly told news agencies that they cannot guarantee the safety of journalists.
A separate January 17 report by CPJ stated that the journalists’ attorneys claimed their arrests by Israel were in retaliation for their journalism and commentary.
The January 17 report notes that 30 journalists, including three held by the Palestinian Authority, have been released since their arrests over the last 15 months.
Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s Al-Qassam militia, called on the West Bank to escalate confrontations with Israel and lauded Iran, the Houthis, and Hezbollah for their aid. These remarks were delivered during an extensive prerecorded address following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, where the spokesman also stressed that his organization sees itself fully committed to the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.
Abu Obeida’s speech began with Quranic verses which reprimand the Israelites for their “arrogance” and blame them for causing “corruption in the land” twice.
The verses also threaten the Israelites with “Allah’s servants,” which would “ravage their homes,” and warn that their enemies will disgrace them and “enter that place of worship as they entered it the first time, and utterly destroy whatever would fall into their hands,” perhaps referring to Hamas’s deadly incursion to Israeli communities on October 7th, 2023, which left 1200 dead and 250 kidnapped.
Al-Qassam’s spokesman then addressed Palestinians in Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank, characterizing the conflict as “a historic battle” that “ignited the spark of Palestinian liberation and demonstrated the capabilities of the rightful owners of the land,” lauding Gazans and Al-Qassam with many a superlative, and commending them for their steadfastness and defending of Jerusalem.Based on an old Islamic tradition dubbed by some Hamas affiliates “the Hadith (oral tradition) of the Al-Aqsa Flood,” he referred to the Palestinians in Gaza as “Al-Ta’ifa Al-Mansura” (The Victorious Group), a mystical group of people who originates in the Levant and will bear witness to the ‘reign of Allah’ in the world at the end of days.
Addressing the toll of the conflict, Abu Obeida acknowledged the “extensive sacrifices” made by Palestinians, describing a “great caravan of martyrs” over more than 15 months of fighting, which he stressed were carried out by all Palestinian factions “in unison.”
He praised what he called the steadfastness of Gaza’s people under what he described as impossible conditions, comparing their resolve to historical religious examples of perseverance under difficulty.
A broad regional impact
Abu Obeida also emphasized what he portrayed as the broader regional impact of the conflict, asserting that while it began in Gaza, it transformed the entire region’s dynamics.
He also listed what he considered significant achievements against Israel, including military impacts, blows to Israel’s economy, the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes, and what he described as “the exposure of the occupation’s true nature to the world,” including the legal persecution against Israeli soldiers and leaders across the globe.
Regarding the ceasefire agreement, Abu Obeida confirmed that Hamas and other Palestinian factions had been seeking to reach such an agreement for many months, even alleging that a similar agreement could have been reached a year prior, expectedly placing the blame for the delay on the Israeli government.
He affirmed their commitment to all aspects of the ceasefire agreement, including the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian inmates, while threatening that the Israeli hostages’ well-being depends on Israel’s commitment to the agreement.
Abu Obeida lauded Hamas’s forces for what he called an “unequal battle” in terms of both military capabilities and ethics, accusing Israel of indiscriminately targeting civilians while claiming that Hamas targeted only soldiers, blaming Israel for the death of some of its hostages.
The speech included extensive gratitude to Hamas’s leaders and regional backers. He mentioned three of Hamas’s leaders who were assassinated by Israel: Ismail Haniyeh, Saleh Al-Arouri, and Yahya Sinwar, whose death scene he dubbed “iconic,” and curiously did not mention Al-Qassam’s leader, Mohammad Deif.
Referring to regional supporters, Abu Obeida mentioned specifically the Houthis in Yemen, whom he praised for what he called their welcome intervention that was felt globally; Hezbollah in Lebanon, thanking them for what he described as their “significant sacrifices” in the conflict; and the Islamic Republic of Iran, whom he thanked for their “continuous support” and engagement in the battle, especially during the instances of the direct Iranian targeting of Israel.
Despite reiterating Hamas’s commitment to a ceasefire, Abu Obeida dedicated significant attention to the West Bank, calling for increased confrontations with Israel and unity among Palestinian factions there. He also lauded the “resistance in Jenin,” dropping any mention of the Palestinian Authority’s military campaign targeting armed militants there.
More on regional affairs, Abu Obeida warned against what he described as attempts to “integrate” Israel in the region, claiming that these would fail in light of what he termed “increased global awareness of the Palestinian cause.”
The speech concluded with messages of determination, stressing that Hamas “shares the pain” of Gazans and promising reconstruction efforts in the Strip, as well as “continued resistance until complete victory and inevitable triumph.”
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