NEW YORK CITY: The permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the UN on Wednesday expressed disbelief that “some still speak of the right to self-defense of a power that seeks the forced transfer and annihilation” of Palestinians.

CHICAGO: A former White House envoy to the Middle East has blamed Iran for the upsurge of violence in the region, and warned there can be no peace until Hamas is “uprooted.”

Jason Greenblatt, who served under Donald Trump as the inaugural Special Representative for International Negotiations between January 2017 and October 2019, was unambiguous in laying the blame for the worst outbreak of violence between Israel and neighboring Gaza in more than a decade.

WASHINGTON: He came to bolster Israel’s fight against Hamas and to offer aid to Palestinians suffering under an Israeli siege, but by flying into Tel Aviv when he did, US President Joe Biden inextricably linked himself to any fight to come.
Biden’s eight-hour visit took place a day after a hospital bombing in Gaza City that killed hundreds of Palestinians quickly became a lightning rod in the Arab world.

AMMAN: The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Wednesday evacuated staff from the country’s embassy in Cairo amid mass demonstrations in the city against the Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza, the Petra News Agency reported.

Citing reports in Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, the agency said the operation took place after Israeli authorities declared a state of maximum alert in all of the nation’s embassies. The evacuation in Cairo followed reports that embassy staff were evacuated from Amman, Jordan, on Oct 8.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Wednesday that two of its members were killed in southern Lebanon while “they were engaging in fighting,” the group’s Telegram channel said.