Gaza killings, West Bank land grab as GHF ends mission | Kuwait Times Newspaper

GAZA: Zionist forces killed three Palestinians in Gaza near the line demarcating areas of Zionist control on Monday, underlining the struggle to broaden a fragile ceasefire deal approved over six weeks ago to global acclaim. Palestinian medics said Monday’s incidents involved a Zionist drone firing a missile at a group of people east of Khan Yunis, killing two and wounding another, and a tank shell killing a person on the eastern side of Gaza City. The Gaza health ministry said on Monday that at least 342 Palestinians had been killed by Zionist fire since the start of the truce. Last week, the United Nations Security Council gave formal backing to US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza, which calls for an interim technocratic Palestinian government in Gaza, overseen by an international “board of peace” and backed by an international security force. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who helped the US develop the plan and who Trump has said may join the board of peace, met the Palestinian Authority’s deputy leader Hussein Al-Sheikh in the West Bank on Sunday. Sheikh said in a social media post they had discussed developments following the Security Council resolution and requirements for Palestinian self-determination. Meanwhile a Hamas delegation in Cairo, led by its exiled chief Khalil Al-Hayya, held talks with Egyptian officials on exploring the next phase of the ceasefire, according to Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson in Gaza. Qassem acknowledged that the path to the second phase of the ceasefire was complex and said the Islamist group had told Egypt, a mediator in the conflict, that Zionist violations were undermining the agreement. Agreeing on the make-up and mandate of the international security force has been particularly challenging. Meanwhile, cultural watchdog Emek Shaveh denounced Monday a decision to expropriate nearly 500 acres of private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank near the ancient archaeological site of Sebastia. “Residents reported that the expropriation will severely restrict access to agricultural lands and could lead to the loss of roughly 3,000 olive trees, some of them centuries old,” the watchdog specializing in cultural heritage rights said in a statement. On Nov 12, the Zionist body that runs civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, COGAT, published a notice of intent for the expropriation of several plots, mostly belonging to the Palestinian village of Sebastia. The stated purpose of the expropriation is the “preservation and development of the site”. Sebastia is an archaeological site dating back to the Iron Age, which the Zionist entity began taking interest in in 2023, first with a plan for the site itself, and then the seizure of the top of the mound that constitutes the site, Emek Shaveh said. The site itself sits in Area C, the roughly 66 percent of the West Bank placed under Zionist administration after the Oslo Accords of the 1990s. The adjacent village of Sebastia had developed a tourism industry around the site, which will be threatened by the new development plans which include a separate Zionist road, a fence around the site, and an entry fee. Peace Now, another Zionist settlement watchdog, pointed out that the latest land seizure was the largest ever carried out for an archaeological purpose. It added that land expropriations for antiquities development have occurred five times since the Zionist entity occupied the West Bank in 1967. “In all cases, the expropriations were formally defined as serving a public purpose, but in practice, they led to the exclusion of Palestinians from the sites,” Peace Now said in a statement. It said the plan for Sebastia would be no different, mostly easing access for Israelis while cutting access for local Palestinians. Also, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US- and Zionist-backed private organization that provided aid for Palestinians in Gaza but was criticized by the UN, said on Monday it was ending its mission. “The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) today announced the successful completion of its emergency mission in Gaza after delivering more than 187 million free meals directly to civilians living in Gaza,” the group said in a statement. GHF was tasked with managing aid distribution points in the Gaza Strip in May, effectively supplanting the UN after the Zionist entity placed tight restrictions on international aid agencies. Those agencies were highly critical of the GHF, which managed four distribution centers in the Gaza Strip, while the UN system it replaced had 400. In August, a UN-mandated expert panel alleged that under the GHF aid was “exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas” and United Nations special rapporteurs called for it to be disbanded. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed by Zionist fire while seeking aid from GHF distribution sites. The foundation said in its statement on Monday that it had been in talks with other international humanitarian organizations and with the Civil-Military Coordination Centre, a task force set up by the US and its allies in the Zionist entity to monitor the truce in Gaza. “It’s clear they will be adopting and expanding the model GHF piloted,” the group’s executive director John Acree said, according to the statement. The US State Department thanked GHF for its humanitarian work and its contribution to reaching a ceasefire in Gaza. In reaction to the announcement of GHF’s closure, a spokesman for Hamas said the organization should be held accountable for the harm it caused to Palestinians. “We call upon all international human rights organizations to ensure that it does not escape accountability after causing the death and injury of thousands of Gazans and covering up the starvation policy practiced by the (Zionist) government,” Qassem wrote on his Telegram channel. – Agencies