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ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled Monday that his country is not ready to ratify Sweden’s membership in NATO, saying Stockholm had to work harder on the “homework” it needs to complete.
Speaking after a Cabinet meeting, Erdogan also renewed his condemnation of a Qur’an-burning protest that took place in Sweden last week, describing the action as a hate crime against Muslims.
“We have made it clear that the determined fight against terrorist organizations and Islamophobia are our red line,” Erdogan said. “Everyone must accept that Turkiye’s friendship cannot be won by supporting terrorism or by making space for terrorists.”
Turkiye has delayed giving its final approval to Sweden’s membership in the military alliance, accusing the country of being too lenient toward anti-Islamic demonstrations and groups that Ankara regards as security threats. These include militant Kurdish groups that have waged a deadly, decades-long insurgency in Turkiye.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has waged a 38-year insurgency against Turkiye that has left tens of thousands dead. It is designated a terrorist organization by the US and the European Union.
NATO wants to bring Sweden into the fold by the time NATO leaders meet in Lithuania on July 11-12 but Erdogan said Stockholm still had obligations to fulfill. NATO requires the unanimous approval of all existing members to expand, and Turkiye and Hungary are the only countries that have not yet ratified Sweden’s bid.
“Instead of wasting time with distraction tactics, we believe that keeping to the promises will be a more rational, more beneficial method,” Erdogan said. “We advise them to scrutinize themselves and do their homework better.”
He was referring to a memorandum that Sweden and Finland signed with Turkiye last year under which they agreed to address Ankara’s concerns. Fighting Islamophobia was not included in the memorandum.
Last week, Swedish police allowed a protest outside a mosque in central Stockholm citing freedom of speech after a court overturned a ban on a similar Qur’an-burning.
“The vile attack on our holy book, the Holy Qur’an, in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, enraged us all,” Erdogan said. “This perverted disregard for the feelings of 2 billion Muslims cannot be compatible with the most basic human values, let alone freedom of thought.”
Sweden and Finland abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO’s security umbrella, fearing they might be targeted by Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine last year. Finland joined the alliance earlier this year after Turkiye’s parliament ratified the Nordic country’s bid.
Sweden changed its anti-terror legislation since applying for NATO membership, but Turkiye argues supporters of militant groups can freely organize demonstrations, recruit and procure financial resources in the country.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg last week called a meeting of senior officials from Turkiye, Sweden and Finland for July 6 to try to overcome Turkish objections to Sweden joining the military alliance.
GENEVA: UN aid agencies on Tuesday voiced alarm at the scale of the ongoing operation in the West Bank town of Jenin, where ten Palestinians have been killed, and said there were restrictions on medical access.
“We are alarmed at the scale of air and ground operations that are taking place in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, and airstrikes hitting a densely populated refugee camp,” Vanessa Huguenin, a spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office, told a briefing. She said three children were among those killed, without providing details.
“First responders have been prevented from entering the (Jenin) refugee camp, including to reach persons who have been critically injured,” said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier, referring to restrictions put in place by Israeli forces.
ANKARA: Egypt and Türkiye took a further step toward restoring full diplomatic ties on Tuesday by dispatching ambassadors for the first time in years, the latest step in the reconciliation between the two regional powers.
In a joint statement, the two countries announced the appointment of Salih Mutlu Sen as Turkish ambassador to Cairo and of Amr Elhamamy as the Egyptian ambassador to Ankara.
“This step aims to establish normal relations between the two countries once again and demonstrates their mutual determination to work towards enhancing their bilateral relations for the best interest of both the Turkish and Egyptian peoples,” the statement said.
Egypt and Türkiye withdrew their ambassadors as tensions between them flared following the Egyptian military’s 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi amid mass protests against his divisive one year of rule. Morsi hailed from the Muslim Brotherhood group, which Türkiye supported. Egypt has designated the group a terrorist organization.
Egypt’s government celebrated the 10th anniversary of the anti-Brotherhood protests on June 30.
The rapprochement between the two countries is part of Türkiye’s efforts to build bridges with countries in the region and end its international isolation amid an economic downturn.
DUBAI: As Israel conducts a massive ground offensive in a densely populated Palestinian refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the assault has a strong sense of deja vu about it, at least to those who remember the raids and confrontations of 2002 that turned the Battle of Jenin into a symbol of Palestinian resistance.
Despite the passage of 21 years between the two Israeli military operations, the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has remained largely unchanged. If anything, the little hope of a peaceful resolution of the Middle East conflict that existed in 2002 has evaporated with the political ascendancy of the Israeli far right.
Since Monday morning Jenin has been witnessing fierce aerial bombardments and ground incursions by the Israeli military, involving elite special forces, armored personnel carriers, bulldozers, helicopters and drones. The assault began with a drone strike on an apartment in the middle of the refugee camp.
The Israeli military said the apartment was a “joint operational command center” for the Jenin Brigades, a unit consisting of militant groups whose members mainly belong to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. More than 10,000 Palestinians are believed to reside within less than half a kilometer of the apparent target.
Made up largely of camps initially set up in the 1950s, Jenin is home to more than 22,000 Palestinians who were expelled from their original homes in 1948 during the Nakba, or Catastrophe — the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias to create the State of Israel.
To Palestinians, the enclave embodies armed resistance against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. To Israelis, Jenin is a hotbed of militancy which belongs to groups that run the ideological gamut from Hamas and Islamic Jihad to Fatah.
Mansour Al-Saadi, the deputy governor of Jenin, told Arab News that the Israeli army had isolated the refugee camp from the city using dirt mounds that its bulldozers piled up at all the entrances. “If the military operation continues for a longer period, the situation in Jenin camp will turn into a humanitarian catastrophe,” he said.
Speaking to Arab News, Abdullah Amawi, a Palestinian resident of a refugee camp in Lebanon, said: “I have some of my relatives in Jenin. We keep in touch through social media as I cannot call them directly. All the social posts I see are of smoke, fires and wounded residents. All I can do is pray: Pray for their lives, their safety, for a continuous roof on top of their heads and, ultimately, freedom.”
Expressing alarm about the Israeli assault, Lynn Hastings, the UN’s resident humanitarian coordinator, wrote on Twitter: “Airstrikes were used in the densely populated refugee camp. Several dead and critically wounded. Access to all injured must be ensured.”
A spokesperson for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, condemned the Israeli offensive as “a new war crime against our defenseless people,” adding: “Our Palestinian people will not kneel, will not surrender, will not raise the white flag and will remain steadfast on their land in the face of this brutal aggression.”
In comments on Twitter on Monday, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, secretary-general of the Arab League, said: “The bombing of cities and camps by planes and the bulldozing of houses and roads is a collective punishment and revenge that will only lead to further detonation of the situation.”
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said the airstrikes were intended to “minimize friction” for the soldiers deployed on the ground. He added the operation sought to end a “safe haven mindset” in the refugee camps that he claimed housed 19 people suspected of attacks on Israelis.
Over the past 24 hours, more Israeli airstrikes have been launched and thousands of soldiers have been stationed in Jenin to try and seize weapons. According to Palestinian Ministry of Health officials, eight Palestinians have died and 50 have been injured so far.
The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims the offensive is “dealing a heavy blow to terrorists in Jenin.” The Israeli military has issued no statement to indicate when its operation will come to an end, while Israeli army radio has said it involves 1,000 troops and dozens of drones and could last for days.
As the gun battle raged between Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters on Monday, the Jenin Brigades said in a statement: “We will fight the occupation forces until the last breath and bullet. We work together and are unified from all factions and military formations.”
The Battle of Jenin left 50 Palestinian civilians and fighters and 23 Israeli soldiers dead in April 2002.
Prior to the Israeli assault, a rocket had been launched from the Jenin area toward an Israeli community and exploded soon after it was fired, according to video footage.
Tensions had increased in the area after an Israeli military operation on June 19 in Jenin turned deadly, with five Palestinians killed in a gun battle, one of whom was a 15-year-old Palestinian girl. Dozens more were wounded, according to Palestinian health officials.
Jenin and Nablus have been the two major targets of Israel’s Operation Breakwater, which was launched more than a year ago. The operation has seen nightly Israeli raids and some of the fiercest clashes in the occupied territories since the second mass Palestinian uprising or intifada.
The ongoing Israeli offensive is the most intense since the Battle of Jenin, which left 50 Palestinian civilians and fighters and 23 Israeli soldiers dead in the space of little over a week in 2002. Thirteen of the soldiers were killed in a single ambush while trying to negotiate the refugee camp’s booby-trapped streets.
The offensive began on April 9, 2002, as Israeli forces, backed by fighter jets, invaded the camp with more than 150 armored tanks and bulldozers. The assault was launched a few days after a Palestinian suicide bombing which killed 30 people during a large gathering for the Jewish holiday of Passover.
The ensuing clashes between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops went on for more than 10 days, razing a large section of Jenin town and leaving some 3,000 Palestinians homeless. Allegations surfaced of extrajudicial killings by the Israeli military and the final death toll is still not a settled debate.
The Israeli government at the time framed Operation Defensive Shield — the country’s largest military mobilization since 1967 — as a defensive measure and a response to suicide bombings inside Israel that collectively claimed 56 lives and left hundreds injured.
In the period between the two offensives, successive Israeli governments, instead of treating the Palestinian Authority as a security partner, have taken actions that have weakened it. Simultaneously, far-right settler groups have accumulated political power in Israel at the expense of parties that support a two-state solution.
The upshot has been growing Palestinian disillusionment with the policies of the Abbas government and the increased popularity of armed groups in Jenin and Nablus, among other cities.
The past year, which has seen more than 140 Palestinian deaths, mostly in clashes or as bystanders, has proved to be the deadliest in more than a decade. Close to 30 Israelis have lost their lives during the same period.
The military operation in Jenin has so far received broad endorsement from Israelis, with even the centrist Yair Lapid voicing his support. “This is a justified step against a terror infrastructure based on accurate and high-quality intelligence,” he said on Twitter.
BEIRUT: The UN peacekeeping force on the Lebanon-Israel border said Monday its commander is in contact with officials in both countries over tensions regarding two tents set up by the militant Hezbollah group last month.
Israel filed a complaint with the United Nations in June claiming that Hezbollah had set up tents several dozen meters (yards) inside of Israeli territory.
The area where the tents were erected in Chebaa Farms and the Kfar Chouba hills were captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and are part of Syria’s Golan Heights that Israel annexed in 1981. The Lebanese government says the area belongs to Lebanon.
Israeli media reported Sunday that Hezbollah evacuated one of the two tents but there has been no confirmation from the Iran-backed Lebanese group.
The head of the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, Maj. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro, “continues to be in direct contact with authorities on both sides of the Blue Line to resolve the situation of the tents,” UNIFIL said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. The borderline demarcated after Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 is known as the blue line.
UNIFIL added: “We are looking into reports that a tent has been moved north of the Blue Line.” UNIFIL added that any unauthorized presence or activity “near the Blue Line is a concern, and has the potential to increase tension and misunderstandings.”
The head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc Mohammed Raad said Saturday that the tents are in Lebanon. He added, referring to Israel: “You cannot remove two tents because there is resistance and strong men in this country.”
Israel and Hezbollah fought to a draw in a monthlong war in Lebanon in 2006. Last week, Hezbollah said it shot down an Israel drone flying over a village in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has in the past claimed downing Israeli drones, and Israel’s military also has said in the past that they have shot down Hezbollah drones.
Israel considers Hezbollah its most serious immediate threat, estimating it has some 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel.
TUNIS: A man stabbed a national guard officer in La Goulette, a suburb of the capital Tunis, the interior ministry said on Monday, the second such attack targeting the police in two weeks.
Police quickly arrested the suspect, the ministry said. The national guard officer was taken to a hospital and his condition was listed as stable.
The reasons of the attack are unknown.
Last month, a policeman died after a man fatally stabbed him on duty outside the Brazilian embassy in Tunis.