Day: 20 October 2023

Ankara, – Turkish National Defense Ministry announced on Friday that five PKK/YPG militants were neutralized in northern Syria.

In a statement, the ministry said that the five militants found to be preparing for attacks in the Operation Olive Branch and Peace Spring areas in Syria.

The Turkish security forces neutralized the five militants before they could achieve their objectives, added the ministry’s statement.

Source: Qatar News Agency

Doha, – HE Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani received Friday a phone call from HE Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of the French Republic Catherine Colonna.

During the phone call, they discussed recent developments in the Palestinian territories and Israel and ways to reduce escalation.

During the call, His Excellency expressed the State of Qatar’s firm stance in condemning all forms of targeting civilians. His Excellency said that killing civilians and innocents, especially women and children, as well as the practice of collective punishment policy are unacceptable under any circumstance.

His Excellency stressed the need to open humanitarian corridors to ensure that relief and aid reach the Palestinian brothers who are under bombardment.

His Excellency also underscored the need to coordinate regional and international efforts to stop the aggression against Gaza and work hard toward achieving a just and comprehensive peace.

Source: Qatar News Agency

Doha, – HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani will participate in the Arab summit to discuss the developments and future of the Palestinian cause and the peace process (Cairo Peace Summit) scheduled to be held tomorrow, Saturday, in Cairo in the Arab Republic of Egypt.

HH the Amir is accompanied by HE Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, and an official delegation.

Source: Qatar News Agency

Baghdad / -Dozens of non-governmental organizations in Iraq announced their absolute solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and their rejection of the brutal Israeli aggression.

In a joint statement today, Friday, these organizations addressed a cry to the global human conscience, to pay attention to the suffering of the Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip, who have suffered and are suffering from occupation, displacement, siege, starvation, murder and genocide, from the most powerful armed force, equipped with incomparable military machinery that burns the land, the offspring, and life, and cuts off the simplest means of life, such as water, food, medicine, electricity, and other services.

In their statement, the non-governmental organizations in Iraq called on the United Nations to activate its slogans in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to intervene forcefully and decisively. They also called on civil society to look at the issue of the Palestinian people in its comprehensive form, with its history and facts, and the principle of life for every human being in his homeland, strengthened and honored, enjoys the rights stipulated in international conventions, and implements international resolutions issued by the United Nations, calling on other humanitarian organizations around the world to stand together against methods of collective punishment and the use of excessive force against civilians and to ensure the provision of the means of life and a decent living for all peoples of the earth.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency

Istanbul – Various Turkish cities witnessed today, after Friday prayers, large mass demonstrations denouncing the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.

Thousands of Turks participated in the demonstrations, raising Palestinian flags alongside Turkish flags and banners calling on the Turkish government to sever its relations with the Israeli entity.

The participants in the demonstrations expressed their absolute solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people and their continuing struggle to establish their free state on Palestinian land.

The demonstrators also denounced the US policy of supporting Israeli crime.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency

Baghdad – The head of the National Wisdom Movement, Ammar Al-Hakim, confirmed that the West is dealing ambivalently with the Palestinian issue.

A statement from his office stated that Al-Hakim met in the host of Sheikh Abdul Hussein Zaboun Al-Muhammadawi, and in the presence of Sheikh Shalal Falih Al-Sayhud, a group of sheikhs and notables of Albu Muhammad clans and sheikhs and notables of al-Jisr district, recalling with them the long history he had with them in confronting dictatorship and building the modern state.

He stressed that the West’s dealings with the Palestinian issue are based on double standards in human rights and freedom of expression, indicating that the West deals with the burner of the Holy Qur’an as having an opinion while suppressing everyone who supports Palestine and demands an end to the massacres.

Al-Hakim expressed his extreme astonishment at the Western handling of the Hospital incident in Gaza and how it complied with the Israeli narrative without consideration, indicating that the size of the bombing, its nature, and its fiery and destructive intensity indicate without a doubt the occupation’s involvement in it.

He stressed that the policy of cutting off water, medicine, and food is reminiscent of what Imam Hussein, peace be upon him, and his family were subjected to in Karbala incident, and that these positions raise astonishment at how all the headlines fell in one day and one night.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency

BRUSSELS, – The European Union Friday said it has sent two planes to Egypt loaded with humanitarian aid material for the Palestinians in Gaza and is waiting for the Rafah border to open to deliver them.

“We are talking about 54 tons of humanitarian supplies including food, water, shelter and sanitary material,” EU spokesperson for Humanitarian aid Balazs Ujvari told a news conference in Brussels.

“We are going to work through the Egyptian Red Cross. The aid is already prepositioned in the region and is ready to go, once humanitarian access is ensured,” he said.

The EU, he said, welcomed the announcement by Egypt and Israel on the opening of the Rafah crossing point for humanitarian aid.

“In line with international humanitarian law there is an obligation on all parties to ensure safe and unhindered access to people in need, and restrictions on quantity, destination and category of items are not in line with this obligation,” stressed the spokesperson.

Source: Kuwait News Agency

GAZA, – The Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) carried on providing urgent aid to Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip that have been facing the Israeli occupation forces’ aggression for the 14 days in a row.

The society announced that it donated three fully equipped ambulances for brothers in the Strip.

KRCS’ Director General Abdurrahman Al-Oun told KUNA in a statement that this donation is part of the society’s humanitarian contributions during these current events in Gaza.

He added that ambulances will be transported through Egypt when the Rafah crossing is opened, noting that this support aims to strengthen ambulances and emergency capabilities in the Strip to remain able to provide ambulance services to the Palestinian people.

Al-Aoun elaborated that the KRCS continues to distribute daily meals and loaves of bread in shelter centers, and it delivers some medical devices and supplies to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.

He pointed out that a convoy of relief and medical aid is currently prepared to enter the Gaza Strip, in coordination and cooperation with the Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent Societies.

Al-Aoun affirmed that the Palestinian issue is a “permanent issue” for the association and Kuwaiti people in general.

He indicated that Kuwait would not hesitate to offer all possible relief, humanitarian and development assistance to the brotherly Palestinian people.

Meanwhile, director general of the Wafa Foundation for Development and Capacity Building Mohsen Atawneh told KUNA that the KRCS has provided, through its team of volunteers and the foundation, hot meals to displaced families since the first day of the aggression on the Gaza Strip.

He added that KRCS’ bakery has been approved which covers a daily amount of bread for shelter centers and the displaced, in addition to supplying diesel to hospitals and providing large quantities of medicines and medical supplies.

The move has an effective impact on mitigating the sufferings of the displaced families, he said.

Source: Kuwait News Agency

KUWAIT, – Thousands of protesters took to the streets Friday against the Israeli occupation forces’ aggression on people in the Gaza Strip in a number of countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Turkiye and Malaysia that called for humanitarian aid access to people in the Strip.

The demonstrations, which are in support of Palestinian people, rejected forced displacement of Palestinians from the Strip to any other places.

In Egypt, furious demonstrators chanted slogans against Israel and the countries supporting the crimes being committed by the Israeli occupation forces against children, women, and the defenseless elderly.

Demonstrations were staged in a number of Egyptian cities, including Cairo, the capital, Giza, Alexandria, Qena and others in support of Palestinians.

Similarly, some Malaysian political parties and non-government organizations staged protests Friday near the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, waving Palestinian flags and denouncing the continued aggression launched by the Israeli occupation forces on the Strip.

They chanted slogans against the Israeli occupation forces and called for stopping violence against Palestinians.

All protests were peaceful, and the police officers were able to control the situation and were treated calmly by the marches.

In Jordan, mass demonstrations took place in a number of Jordanian cities on Friday, denouncing the Israeli occupation forces’ aggression against the Gaza Strip and calling on the international community to intervene to stop the aggression.

Amman witnessed a march launched in front of Husseini Mosque after Friday prayers to denounce the aggression of the Israeli occupation forces that has so far left about 4,200 martyrs and about 13,000 wounded.

The demonstrators called on the international community to intervene and stop the aggression, which caused massive damage to Gaza’s infrastructure and demolished hundreds of buildings, places of worship, schools, and public buildings.

Turkiye was not away from these protests as a massive demonstration erupted in Istanbul, denouncing the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip for two weeks and the massacres committed by the Israeli occupation forces, including Al-Ma’madani Hospital, which claimed hundreds of martyrs and wounded.

The demonstrators waved the Turkish and Palestinian flags and raised anti-Israel banners, shouting “Free Palestine”. They chanted slogans in solidarity with the Palestinian people, denouncing the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

They said that history will not forget Israel’s brutality and crimes against humanity, and it will be held accountable eventually.

Source: Kuwait News Agency

The death toll has surged to at least 3,866, the majority of them civilians, including children, with 13,400 individuals injured in Gaza and the West Bank due to the Israeli aggression, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said in an update.

The Ministry said in a brief statement that the number of deaths in the Gaza Strip has reached 4,137, while the death toll in the West Bank also surged to 81. Meanwhile, over 12,000 people have been injured in Gaza and 1,400 others in the West Bank.

Source: Jordan News Agency