GAZA CITY: Security fears were on Monday heightened in the wake of Sunday’s killing by Daesh gunmen of two Israeli policemen in the city of Hadera just hours ahead of a key meeting of foreign ministers.

The two assailants involved in the shooting were shot dead at the scene.

The incident followed stabbings last week in Beersheba that left four Israelis dead. Daesh has claimed responsibility for both terror attacks which have rocked security services working to ease tensions in Palestine.

On Monday, the foreign ministers of Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Israel, and the US held a summit in Israel to discuss the Palestinian issue and other regional matters. The same day, Jordan’s King Abdullah visited the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Political leaders recently discussed the beefing-up of security measures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in preparation for the month of Ramadan.

The Israeli government also agreed to increase from 10,000 to 20,000 the number of Palestinian workers from Gaza allowed to enter Israel, while easing import restrictions on certain goods.

Israeli army radio said that Israel’s government coordinator in the Palestinian territories, Ghassan Alyan, had recently travelled to Cairo for security talks with Egyptian officials, and Israel was also reportedly set to press ahead with pre-coronavirus pandemic plans to allow Palestinians in the West Bank to visit Jerusalem.

Events last year in Jerusalem and the city’s eastern Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood led to violence and contributed toward a fourth conflict between Gaza and Israel and security talks are aimed at avoiding a repeat of tensions this year.

Mostafa Ibrahim, a writer on Israeli affairs, told Arab News that Israel currently wanted to avoid any confrontations with the Palestinians. “It is clear that there is an Israeli desire, backed by American pressure, to calm the situation in the Middle East in light of the Russian-Ukrainian war,” he said.

The Hebrew newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, said that the Israeli security system faced a number of challenges in the run-up to the month of Ramadan, adding there were real fears in Israel of an escalation of violence in the Palestinian territories.

Ramadan coincides with the revival of Land Day on March 30, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day on April 17, the anniversary of the Great March of Return, and in May the first anniversary of last year’s Gaza conflict, and Nakba Day on May 15. All the events had the potential to spark confrontations.

And the newspaper claimed that Hamas was attempting to destabilize security and calm in the West Bank and Jerusalem, while maintaining them in the Gaza Strip.

“Hamas realizes that the escalation creates a security problem for Israel at the tactical level. At the strategic level, it threatens and undermines the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority,” it reported.

However, despite underlying tensions, it did not predict any fresh flare ups in Gaza, Sheikh Jarrah, or at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Ibrahim said recent international visits and dialogue would help contribute toward maintaining calm.

“The recent Israeli facilities — despite their limitations — and the various international pressures, the desire of Arab countries to focus on the global crisis following the war in Ukraine, and negotiations with Iran, have contributed to pushing the Palestinian areas to maintain calm,” he added.

BEIRUT: The motives behind the horrific quadruple murder in Lebanon of a mother and her three daughters are still unclear.

The killings in Ansar, committed 20 days ago by Hussein Jamil Fayyad but discovered last week, are being described as the most serious murders in recent years in Lebanon.

Basma Abbas, along with her daughters Rima, Tala and Manal, were slain in a premeditated attack, leading to a surge of public anger in the country and calls for the two killers to be executed. 

A funeral ceremony on Sunday morning in Ansar was attended by the father of the girls and Abbas’ ex-husband, Zakaria Sawafi, who also serves as the town mayor.

Sawafi helped in the discovery of the crime after he raised the alarm following the disappearance of his daughters.

Together with Ansar residents, Sawafi pushed for the arrest of a suspect who was last seen with the four victims on the last day they were seen alive. However, after being arrested, that suspect was released following an investigation.

According to new details, on March 2, the three siblings and Abbas left their home in Ansar on a stormy night accompanied by 35-year-old Fayyad, reportedly the fiance of one of the daughters.

He was arrested and interrogated in Ansar about two weeks after the murders took place.

A relative of the victims said that the public prosecutor in Nabatiyeh, judge Ghada Abu Alwan, had interrogated Fayyad, but later released him.

A judicial source said that preliminary investigations into Fayyad’s activities did not result in any charges.

But soon after his release, Fayyad fled to Syria. Last week, he was encouraged to return to Ansar by relatives, when he was ambushed and arrested by Lebanese military intelligence.

During his interrogation, contradictions in his statement and phone data were discovered.

Fayyad later confessed to the crime, noting the involvement of a Syrian national accomplice and revealing the location of the four corpses.

On March 25, specialized teams went to inspect the location — a valley that is difficult to reach to due to its rugged terrain.

Four bodies were discovered inside a cave between the towns of Ansar and Zrarieh.

Fayyad admitted that he had carried out the mass murder of the family and buried them in the cave.

He lured the victims to the location under the pretense of showing them land that he planned to buy.

Together with his accomplice, he killed the victims using a hunting weapon and covered their corpses with stones, dirt and concrete.

But despite Fayyad’s confession, he has not explained his motive for carrying out the murders.

On Sunday night, activists on social media circulated pictures of Hassan Al-Ghanaj, the Syrian accomplice in the crime.

Images showed him bleeding after men from the Lebanese Nasser Al-Din family managed to lure him from Syrian territory to the Lebanese border through illegal crossings.

He was severely beaten and handed over to Lebanese authorities. Footage showed scenes of celebration in Lebanon’s northern Bekaa region over the arrest of Al-Ghanaj.

Fayyad’s family repudiated the killers in a statement, condemning the crime.

Safawi said that he refused to accept “the law of the jungle and any retaliatory and irresponsible behavior.”

However, Ansar residents have called on the Lebanese president to “actually execute the murderer, not to sentence him to death and suspend the execution, as is customary.”

ROME: A memorandum of understanding on joint scientific research has been signed in Dubai by Maria Chiara Carrozza, president of the Italian National Council for Research, and Abdulla Al-Saleh, the UAE’s undersecretary for the economy.

Emirati Economy Minister Abdulla bin Touq Al-Marri attended the signing ceremony.

The MoU aims to support joint scientific research programs in areas that serve the sectors of the future economy, most notably renewable energy, technology, food security, space and modern agricultural technology.

The MoU also aims to promote mutual visits by faculty members and academic bodies from both countries.

Al-Marri said Emirati-Italian relations are based “on solid foundations of friendship and cooperation in various fields.”

The two countries, he added, share many common visions for the future, which is reflected in the numerous partnerships that exist between them in areas of the new economy such as innovation and entrepreneurship.

“Today, we are making new progress through this memorandum, which aims to enhance the contribution of scientific research and modern science to sustainable economic development efforts based on knowledge, innovation and technology,” Al-Marri said.

“This memorandum comes as a continuation of the tireless efforts of the two countries to devote joint cooperation towards future sectors, and by employing scientific research tools, we will work to measure strengths in promising knowledge-based growth opportunities in the two countries’ markets, and provide a forward-looking scientific vision for the future directions of the economic sectors,” he added.

“We look forward during the coming period to achieving the maximum benefit from the outputs of this memorandum and its contribution to developing and diversifying the existing economic partnerships between the UAE and Italy.”

Carrozza said the MoU “will establish a framework for the development of joint programs and projects of mutual interest.”

She added that 8,000 experts from both countries “will be able to exchange their experiences and ideas in several activities that will support the goals of the transition towards a resilient and sustainable economy. We strongly believe in this cooperation.”

DUBAI: UAE President  Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has ordered the release of 540 prisoners in the country, ahead of Ramadan, state news agency WAM reported.

The annual move serves as part of President Khalifa’s initiative to give pardoned inmates an opportunity to start a new life and ease the suffering of their families, the report added.

LONDON: Western countries should not overlook Iran’s growing missile capabilities, a former Israeli representative to the UN has warned.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Dore Gold said the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, has failed to prevent the country from building a stockpile of ballistic missiles.
As a result, Iran’s missile capacity has grown “both in number and quality, including the range and accuracy of its missile force,” he added.
Gold drew a comparison with the UN’s treatment of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, where resolutions required that ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 km be “removed or destroyed under international supervision.”
That condition has not been applied to Iran, meaning that it “is already altering the balance of power in the region,” he said.

This was demonstrated in the 2020 attack on the US-controlled Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq and the activities of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia, Gold added.
He noted comments by US Central Command Cmdr. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, who said this month that Iran’s 3,000 ballistic missiles have become “the greatest threat to Middle Eastern security.”
Gold argued that rather than moderating Iran’s behavior, the JCPOA has had the opposite effect in licensing Tehran to “rapidly increase the number of Shiite militias” and making the Middle East “far more dangerous.”
He said the removal of Western economic sanctions on Iran “prepared the groundwork for funding militias across the region, especially in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.”
Tehran is using the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as “its chosen instrument for spreading the new militancy,” he added.
Under the JCPOA, Gold said, the IRGC was stripped of its terrorist label — a decision that was “morally and factually wrong” and likely to empower the network “to conduct more attacks,” referencing its rocket strike on the US Consulate in Irbil earlier this month.
“Without some major change in Iranian intentions towards Western states, European countries are not likely to remain merely political rivals,” Gold concluded. “They could soon become the very real targets of Iran’s increasingly robust missile forces.”