Category World News

Trump says he wants all Middle Eastern countries to have formal Israel ties

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Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has called on all countries in the Middle East to forge formal relations with Israel despite the ongoing Israeli atrocities in Gaza, citing the US attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.

Trump’s call on Thursday comes amid a growing international push to recognise a Palestinian state.

“Now that the nuclear arsenal being ‘created’ by Iran has been totally OBLITERATED, it is very important to me that all Middle Eastern Countries join the Abraham Accords,” the US president wrote.

“This will insure [sic] PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Trump’s administration has not presented evidence that Iran was weaponising its nuclear programme or building a nuclear arsenal, as the president has claimed.

During his first term in 2020, Trump secured a series of deals, known as the Abraham Accords, to establish official diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

But US efforts to expand the agreements – with focus on Saudi Arabia – over the past years have failed.

The kingdom’s top officials have repeatedly stressed that Riyadh is committed to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions recognising Israel on establishing a Palestinian state.

The war on Gaza, which Riyadh has decried as a genocide, further complicated the push to normalise relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

But Trump appeared to link Arab-Israeli relations to the Iranian nuclear programme and the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, which saw the US military strike Iran’s nuclear sites.

Arab countries had condemned Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, which killed top military officials and nuclear scientists as well as hundreds of civilians.

When he visited the Gulf region in May, Trump appeared to de-emphasise Arab-Israeli normalisation.

He said it is his “dream” for Saudi Arabia to establish official ties with Israel, but he wants the kingdom to do it on its “own time”.

While the so-called Abraham Accords fostered trade and security ties between the countries involved, they failed to end or mitigate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel has continued to build and expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, and it has destroyed most of Gaza, killing more than 61,000 people as it imposes a starvation crisis on the territory.

It’s not clear what sparked Trump’s renewed call for Arab-Israeli normalisation. But his statement coincides with an Arab-backed international push to recognise the state of Palestine, which Washington has rejected.

Earlier this week, Trump suggested that he would not block Israel’s plan to expand its ground military operations to all of Gaza – a move that could compound the suffering of Palestinians who have been repeatedly displaced throughout the war.

“That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel,” the US president said when asked about the Israeli plan.

Sudan military destroyed UAE plane carrying Colombian mercenaries: State TV

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Sudan’s air force has destroyed a UAE aircraft carrying Colombian mercenaries as it was landing at an airport in Darfur controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), army-aligned state TV reported.

The attack late on Wednesday killed at least 40 people, the state broadcaster reported.

The airport has recently come under repeated air strikes by the Sudanese army, which has been at war with the RSF since April 2023.

A military source, speaking to the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity, said the Emirati plane “was bombed and completely destroyed” at Darfur’s Nyala airport.

There was no immediate comment from the RSF.

AFP quoted an Emirati official denouncing what he considered false allegations that the Sudanese army had destroyed the plane.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said his government was trying to find out how many Colombians died in the attack.

“We will see if we can bring their bodies back,” he wrote on X.

State TV said the aircraft had taken off from an airbase in the Gulf, carrying dozens of foreign fighters and military equipment intended for the RSF, which controls nearly all of Darfur.

The army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has long accused the United Arab Emirates of supplying advanced weaponry, including drones, to the RSF via Nyala Airport.

Abu Dhabi has denied the accusations.

Satellite images released by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab have shown multiple Chinese-made long-range drones at the airport of the South Darfur state capital.

On Monday, Sudan’s army-aligned government accused the UAE of recruiting and funding Colombian mercenaries to fight for the RSF, claiming it has documents proving that.

Reports of Colombian fighters in Darfur date back to late 2024 and have been confirmed by United Nations experts.

Colombia seeks to ban mercenaries

This week, the Joint Forces – a pro-army coalition in Darfur – reported more than 80 Colombian mercenaries fighting on the RSF’s side in el-Fasher, the last Darfur state capital still under army control.

The army also released video footage it said was of “foreign mercenaries believed to be from Colombia”, which could not be independently verified.

In December, Sudan said Colombia’s Foreign Ministry had expressed regret “for the participation of some of its citizens in the war”.

Colombian mercenaries, many former soldiers and guerrillas, have appeared in other global conflicts and were previously hired by the UAE for operations in Yemen and the Gulf.

In his post on Wednesday, Petro said he was moving to ban mercenary activity, calling it “a trade in men turned into commodities to kill”.

As fighting continues, thousands of families trapped in the besieged city of el-Fasher are at “risk of starvation”, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.

An outbreak of cholera in the North Darfur state, of which el-Fasher is the capital, has further added to the misery.

Netanyahu says Israel intends to take control of Gaza in interview

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in an interview with Fox News that Israel does not want to rule the Strip, but that it does intend to.

His remarks came on Thursday, just before Israel’s cabinet met to discuss his plan to occupy the Strip.

“We intend to take over] to ensure our security, remove Hamas from] there, allow the population to be free of Gaza, and transfer it to civilian governance that is not Hamas, and not anyone who supports the destruction of Israel,” he said.

He claimed in the interview that Israel wants to give the armed forces control over Gaza and that it does want a security perimeter.

We are not interested in keeping it. A security perimeter is what we want. We oppose having a government in it. We oppose serving as the body’s governing body.

Why are Israelis ‘not at all troubled’ by starvation in Gaza?

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On Saturday, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Tel Aviv to demand that their government negotiate the release of two Israeli prisoners imprisoned in Gaza who had been depicted in Hamas footage as starving.

The video demonstrated how the captives’ experience with the Israeli blockade of Gaza in March affected the rest of the population there.

At least 197 people have been starved to death in Gaza so far, 96 of them children. Global outcry over the famine Israel is putting on the island has grown.

However, a survey from the Israel Democracy Institute (PDF) revealed that more than half of Jewish Israeli respondents were “not at all troubled” by Gaza’s reports of Palestinian hunger and suffering.

Images of the enormous human costs of Israel’s actions were featured on the front pages of international newspapers that were previously accused of backing the Israeli occupation of Gaza.

In ostensible defiance of international outcry, far-right Israeli agitators have blocked aid trucks from reaching Gaza’s starving region for the past 24 hours.

Former allies that have a history of standing, including Canada, France, and the United Kingdom, have condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza and pledged to support the recognition of Palestinian statehood if no resolution is reached.

Two of Israel’s top NGOs, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, Israel, have labelled Israel’s occupation of Gaza a genocide, and there are now more protests.

However, hundreds of demonstrators, led by wounded soldiers and some of the captives’ families, marched on Jerusalem’s Knesset, demanding that the conflict in Gaza continue.

The majority of Israeli society hasn’t yet been fully aware of the extent of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and their government’s role in it, according to Orly Noy, a journalist and editor of the Israeli Hebrew-language magazine Local Call.

This is especially true because the media hasn’t covered Gaza’s suffering.

Noy told Al Jazeera, “I stay away from Israeli TV.” “But yesterday, I was round at my mother’s, and they were covering the incident on the video between the two captives.

She continued, “For once, starvation and famine in Gaza were finally on Israeli news,” adding that the wider Israeli public was being informed that the only two people who were in need of food in Gaza were the captives in the Hamas film.

The widespread hunger reported by numerous aid organizations as “a Hamas-orchestrated starvation campaign” has been the subject of a foreword in Israel’s mainstream media for months.

Political analyst and former government adviser Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera that this perception extends beyond the nationalistic television channels’ framing.

It is the result of decades of self-justification and dehumanization, Levi said.

Most Israelis would find it unsettling to express some moral condemnation of the nation despite feeling that something has seriously wrong. They are able to make sense of it through a kind of cognitive dissonance at play.

According to Israeli sociologist Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani, there is also the language being used by politicians, the media, and ultimately the general public to discuss the war.

They have corroded language, they say. They refer to a humanitarian city as “humanitarian city” rather than “concentration camps.” They use the phrase “elimination” instead of “killing.” A biblical name is used today to describe every military operation.

We don’t mention that “such and such a thing” occurred in June. During Operation Whatever, we say “. It teaches understanding of everything. Jargon has evolved into a completely new form of speech. He referred to the dystopian novel in which the state dictates language, which he claimed would become Orwell’s 1984.

tides that change

However, most Israelis continue to see Gaza’s starvation through the lenses of its politicians and media, but there are indications that the mood is beginning to change, according to observers.

Alon-Lee Green of Standing Together is detained while holding a demonstration near Gaza [Photo by Standing Together]

A member of the left-wing Hadash-Ta’al party’s delegation in Israel, Aida Touma-Suleiman, said, “This isn’t going to hold up.”

More and more people are becoming aware that Gaza’s population is actually starving, and how can it not have been prevented by Israel’s massive effort to send food there?

In the meantime, standing up for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is becoming more and more prevalent across all facets of Israeli society, though for frequently with very different reasons, activists like Alon-Lee Green of the Israeli-Palestinian group Stand Up.

“We don’t care why people are calling for war,” the leader said. We don’t care if it’s because your children aren’t interested in going to Gaza and killing people because you don’t want to go on another tour with the army. You’re welcome, he said, if you’re opposed to the war.

However, despite the deaths of more than 61, 000 Palestinians since October 2023 and the loss of thousands more to the unidentified and presumed dead, the majority of Israeli society has yet to accept the reality of the suffering Israel is inflicting on Gaza. &nbsp,

According to Shenhav-Shahrabani, “we’ve reached the point where the Israeli state and society have lost whatever moral responsibilities they had as a result of the Holocaust.”

‘Palestinian Pele’ Suleiman al-Obeid killed while seeking aid in Gaza

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Israeli forces attacked aid seekers in Gaza, killing Palestinian national football team player Suleiman al-Obeid.

According to the Palestinian Football Association, Al-Obeid, 41, was killed on Wednesday when Israeli forces attacked residents who were awaiting aid deliveries near a distribution center in southern Gaza.

He was given the nickname “Pele of Palestinian football,” referring to the Brazilian professional footballer who was widely regarded as one of the greatest football players ever.

One of the most talented players in Palestinian football has been the Gaza player, who has scored more than 100 goals throughout his long career.

Suleiman Al-Obeid, a former national team player and former Khadamat al-Shati star, was killed on Wednesday when Israeli occupation forces attacked those in the southern Gaza Strip in a statement.

Since al-Obeid’s death, there have been more than 662 athletes and their families killed in the Strip since the start of Israel’s war.

321, including players, coaches, administrators, referees, and club board members, are currently the number of football-related deaths in Gaza.

The former football star joined the West Bank’s Khadamat al-Shati club before joining the Khadamat al-Shati club.

Al-Obeid and Al-Fida’i played 24 international games, scoring two goals, the most famous of which came in a scissor kick goal against Yemeni national team at the 2010 West Asian Football Federation Championship.

A wife and five children are left behind by the football star.

Since the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s operations began in late May, more than 1,300 Palestinians have died near aid distribution centers.

According to medical sources, at least 18 people died on Wednesday while requesting aid, citing Israel’s continuing stringent restrictions on supplies of humanitarian aid.

Microsoft cloud used in Israeli mass surveillance of Palestinians: Report

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According to a joint investigation by The Guardian, + 972 Magazine, and Local Call, Israel’s elite cyber-intelligence unit kept sizable amounts of intercepted Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft’s cloud servers.

The secretive intelligence branch of the Israeli military, Unit 8200, has been building the surveillance system since 2022. The device makes it possible for the unit to capture and retain recordings of millions of Palestinian calls made every day in the West Bank and Gaza.

Leaked Microsoft documents and testimonies from 11 sources, including those from Israeli military intelligence and the company, were the source of the revelations that were initially reported on Wednesday.

According to the leaks, a significant portion of the data appeared to be being stored on Microsoft’s Azure servers in the Netherlands and Ireland, according to the Guardian.

According to three Unit 8200 sources, the cloud-based system influenced operations across the occupied Palestinian territories and prevented deadly airstrikes.

According to Microsoft, Satya Nadella, who had a meeting with Yossi Sariel’s commander in Unit 8200 in 2021, was unaware of the nature of the stored data. No “evidence has been found” that Azure or its artificial intelligence (AI) tools were being “used to target or harm people,” according to the company.

The revelations follow Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory,’s report identifying the businesses supporting Israel’s occupation and occupation of Gaza.

According to the report, Microsoft, which has been in Israel since 1991, has begun integrating its technologies into the country’s military, police, prisons, schools, and settlements.

The business has developed ties to Israeli defense since 2003, acquiring cybersecurity and surveillance start-ups, and embedding its systems in military operations. An Israeli colonel referred to cloud services like those provided by Microsoft as “a weapon in every way” in 2024.

According to The Guardian, Nadella reportedly offered to help with Sariel’s effort to move large amounts of military intelligence into the cloud according to internal records at Microsoft.

According to a Microsoft statement that the Guardian cited, “is not accurate” to say that he personally supported the project.

Later, Microsoft engineers collaborated with Israeli intelligence to incorporate security measures into Azure, enabling the transfer of up to 70% of Unit 8200’s sensitive data.

Despite Israeli officials’ claims that the technology halts attacks, Unit 8200 sources claimed that the system randomly collects communications, which are frequently used to detain or blackmail Palestinians. One source quoted as saying, “When they need to arrest someone and there isn’t a good enough reason,” “that’s where they find the excuse.”

According to some sources, the stored data was used to justify killings and detentions.

The expansion of the system caused a wider shift in Israeli surveillance, moving from targeted tracking to comprehensive monitoring of the Palestinian population. Text messages reportedly receive risk scores based on a set of trigger words, such as martyrdom or weapons-related discussions.

Sariel had long advocated cloud-based surveillance and left in 2024 as a result of Israel’s intelligence failure on October 7, 2023.

The surveillance program is still active as Israel’s war against Gaza drags on, with more than 61 Palestinians killed, among them 18, 000 children. According to sources, military operations are still being conducted using the existing data and AI tools.