Live: Over 200 Lebanese children killed in two months of Israeli attacks
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US President Donald Trump told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a phone conversation on Friday that he's committed to stopping the war in Gaza and willing to collaborate with the Palestinian leader, Wafa news agency reported.
President Abbas congratulated the US president during the call and expressed his hope that Trump would lead the United States towards further progress and prosperity during his term in office.
Jordan’s former foreign minister has told Middle East Eye that Arab countries need to abandon the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
“Practically, that is not going to take place,” Marwan Muasher, who also served as Jordan’s deputy prime minister and opened the kingdom's first embassy in Israel in 1995, said of the two-state solution in a video interview with Middle East Eye.
The ex-diplomat, who is now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said it should be replaced with a “rights-based approach in which the departure point should be equal rights between Israelis and Palestinians”.
“Then one can start talking about what shape of a solution we can arrive at. But any solution that does not involve equal rights is not going to be sustainable in my view.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Muasher said Jordan is very concerned that Israel intends the forceful transfer of large numbers of Palestinians to the kingdom.
Read More: Jordan's former foreign minister says two-state solution is over
The Israeli army has detained eight Palestinians from Tabaqa, southwest of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, Wafa news reported on Friday.
Soldiers stormed the town and broke into several houses before making the arrests.
Earlier, the army detained five other Palestinians also from the Hebron governorate.
There is a "strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas" of the northern Gaza, a committee of global food security experts said on Friday.
"Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation," the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.
The warning comes just days ahead of a US deadline for Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.
"If no effective action is taken by stakeholders with influence, the scale of this looming catastrophe is likely to dwarf anything we have seen so far in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023," the FRC committee said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that there are between 75,000 and 95,000 people still in northern Gaza.
More than 500 scholars and practitioners of international law, international relations, conflict studies, politics, and genocide studies have called on the UN General Assembly and its member states to unseat Israel from the assembly.
The UN General Assembly suspended apartheid South Africa in 1974 until its transition to democracy. The scholars argue there is a stronger case for suspending Israel, given its persistent disregard for international law over more than seven decades, including violations of the UN Charter, Security Council resolutions, and orders by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
In a joint letter shared with Middle East Eye, the signatories listed a wide range of acts committed by the state of Israel since its establishment in 1948, which have been in defiance of international law. The letter said that Israel has “shown contempt” for resolutions by the General Assembly throughout its history.
These include Israel’s violation of Resolution 194 (III) (1948), enshrining the Palestinian right of return, and Resolution 181 (II) (1947), enshrining Palestinian state sovereignty. The two resolutions were viewed as conditions of Israel’s admission to the UN, under Resolution 273 (III) (1949).
Additionally, Israel has consistently breached legally binding UN Security Council resolutions, including resolutions related to Gaza since 7 October 2023. This adds to the list of Security Council resolutions violated by Israel for decades, mainly concerned with its unlawful occupation of Palestinian territories.
Read More: Why more than 500 scholars think Israel should be unseated from the UN
Israeli air strikes killed at least 15 people and wounded 69 in Lebanon on Thursday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Lebanon’s National News Agency also reported that at least two people were killed and others wounded in Israeli air strikes on the southern city of Tyre.
Since 7 October 2023, at least 3,117 people have been killed and 13,888 wounded in Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
The casualties include 180 health workers, 617 women and 192 children. The ministry also reported that hospitals have been attacked 65 times.
صدر عن مركز عمليات طوارئ الصحة العامة التابع لوزارة الصحة العامة التقرير اليومي لحصيلة وتداعيات العدوان الإسرائيلي على لبنان
— Ministry of Public Health - Lebanon (@mophleb) November 8, 2024
وفيه أن غارات العدو الإسرائيلي ليوم أمس الخميس 7 تشرين الثاني 2024 اسفرت عن 15 شهيدا و 69 جريحا. pic.twitter.com/zyWGhLwaVy
The Metropolitan Police’s War Crimes Team has shared a “small number of referrals” with the International Criminal Court (ICC) since the Hamas-led attack on Israel last October and and the ensuing war on Gaza.
The War Crimes Team has reviewed around 170 referrals related to the ongoing conflict since 7 October 2023 and has shared information with the international court “as part of the UK’s international obligations”, a police spokesperson told Middle East Eye.
“We will not be commenting on the specific nature of each and every referral, but each one is reviewed in line with War Crimes/Crimes Against Humanity Referral Guidelines, jointly agreed by police and the Crown Prosecution Service," the spokesperson said.
“At this time, there is no UK-based investigation into any matters relating to this particular conflict."
The Met’s comments come after the Ministry of Defence said it would consider sharing war crimes evidence with the court that Royal Air Force spy planes may have gathered while flying over Gaza over the past year.
Read More: Metropolitan Police say they referred Israel-Gaza war crimes cases to ICC
Hezbollah said it launched a missile barrage at a central Israeli airbase, marking its latest strike in over a month of intense conflict, Al Jazeera reported.
The group stated it had “targeted the Tel Nof airbase, south of Tel Aviv... with a salvo of advanced missiles”.
Israel's army earlier has reported intercepting several drones aimed at the western and Upper Galilee regions.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said that an Israeli army bulldozer destroyed part of a fence and a concrete structure in its position in Ras Naqoura, near Lebanon's border with Israel.
Unifil called it a "flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701" in a statement.
UNIFIL says on Thursday an IDF bulldozer destroyed part of a fence and a concrete structure in a UNIFIL position in Ras Naqoura. “Flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701,” statement says. pic.twitter.com/AbDAM2Otg9
— Gabriel Elizondo (@elizondogabriel) November 8, 2024
The head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday that states supplying weapons to Israel as it pursues conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon despite evidence of violations of international law are empowering belligerents elsewhere.
Tirana Hassan, HRW's Executive Director, said that countries like the United States, Germany and Britain could influence Israel's actions and should do so by ending arms sales.
"If there continues to be military support to the [Israeli army] and they (Western governments) know that these weapons are being used in the commission of war crimes, then that should be enough for weapons sales and transfers to stop," she told Reuters in an interview.
"At this stage, the parties that could have some sort of influence and curb the behavior of the warring parties, when it comes to Israel, it's the U.S, it's the UK, and it's Germany, and it's through weapons sales and transfers."
At least 60 Jordanian men and women have joined an open hunger strike to demand the lifting of the Israeli siege on the northern Gaza Strip.
The activists seek to pressure the government to get aid into the war-ravaged area and thwart a reported Israeli plan to expel the Palestinian population permanently.
“We demand the closure of Jordanian crossings to goods heading to the Israeli occupation until sufficient medical and humanitarian aid is delivered to the northern Gaza Strip,” Mohammed Awda, one of the strikers, told Middle East Eye.
He added that they want at least 500 aid trucks to enter Jabalia, Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and the Kamal Adwan hospital.
The northern Gaza towns have been under a brutal Israeli blockade and assault for over a month.
READ MORE: Dozens of Jordanians launch hunger strike to lift north Gaza siege
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that Yechiel Leiter will be Israel's new ambassador to the US.
US-born Leiter has served as deputy director-general of the Israeli education ministry, chief of staff of then-finance minister Netanyahu and acting chairman of the Ports Authority.
The Palestinian health ministry reports that 43,508 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza.
An additional 102,684 have been injured since the strikes began in October 2023. The true death toll is expected to be higher, as many remain buried beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings.
A UN report on Friday stated that nearly 70 percent of those killed in Gaza are children and women.
When former President Donald Trump snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in the 2016 elections, I wrote an article in Middle East Eye to explain the roots of his mystifying phenomenon.
I argued that white racism alone could not explain his victory, and that there were deeper social, economic and political causes behind his rise.
Even though the number of white voters has been consistently declining in the US - with the most recent US census revealing the number of white Americans had reached a historical low of 62 percent of the general population - they still comprise a majority and represent the bulk of the Republican Party.
But the presence of racism among certain segments of society cannot explain the changes in voting behaviour since former President Barack Obama was elected twice, and four years later, the American electorate had determinedly ousted Trump.
Even though Hillary Clinton beat Trump in 2016 in the popular vote with 66 million votes to 63 million, she still lost the Electoral College vote 306 to 232.
Read more: Trump did not win this election. Harris was defeated by a Gaza-inspired boycott
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announced on X that France’s Nations League match at the Stade de France in Paris will go ahead as planned on Thursday, despite calls for it to be “relocated.”
Retailleau stated that he had instructed the police to implement necessary security measures to ensure the game takes place safely. His announcement comes after Israeli hooligans provoked clashes with Dutch youth in Amsterdam on Thursday after they chanted racist anti-Arab slogans, tore down Palestinian flags and ignored a minute of silence for the Spanish flood victims.
Retailleau also condemned Paris Saint-Germain fans for displaying a large “Free Palestine” banner before their UEFA Champions League match against Atletico Madrid, calling it “unacceptable.”
