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ATFP News Roundup October 31, 2016

News:

Following the United States’ reelection to the United Nations Human Rights Council, U.S. Secretary of John Kerry criticized the body for its “biased focus on Israel.” (JTA/Times of Israel)

Leaders of Hamas announced that they had offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a “complete vision” to achieving reconciliation between Hamas and the ruling Fatah movement. (Ma'an)

Pres. Abbas' Political Rival Dahlan Says He Won't Seek Palestinian Presidency, Backs Jailed Barghouti. (Ha'aretz)

Three Israeli Border Police officers were injured in a car ramming attack near Hebron, the fifth attempted West Bank attack in two days. (JTA)

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) announced that Kuwait would be donating $5 million to the organization. (Ma'an)

A Palestinian allegedly carrying out a car-ramming attack was killed by Israeli forces near the village of Beit Ummar in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron early on Sundayevening. (Ma'an)

The Israeli Foreign Ministry says relocating illegal West Bank outpost to abandoned Palestinian land would harm Israel. (Ha'aretz)

Israeli authorities have banned 5-year-old Ibrahim from visiting his father, Palestinian Muhammad Ahmad Abd al-Fatah Abu Fanunah, in prison, Abu Fanunah’s wife said to Voice of Prisoners (Sawt al-Asra) radio on Sunday. (Ma'an)

A prominent Israeli journalist and author quit his job on Sunday after a second woman accused him of sexual harassment, the first having been persuaded to go public by the raft of sexual assault allegations against U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump. (Reuters/New York Times/JTA/Ha'aretz)

Iraqi troops and security forces edged closer to Mosul on two southern fronts on Sunday but a leader of the Shi'ite militias newly participating in the offensive warned that the battle for Islamic State's Iraq stronghold would be long and grueling. (Reuters)

Iraqi federal policemen stood over the corpse of an Islamic State suicide bomber covered by a curtain. The chain attached to his ankle was tied to a car that had dragged him through streets, they said, that were once part of a self-proclaimed jihadist caliphate. (Reuters)

Gun trucks and humvees streamed north on a highway heading to Mosul on Sunday flying the banners of Shi’ite militias along with Iraqi flags while blaring religious songs. (Reuters)

Iraqi Christians, scarred by Islamic State’s cruelty, doubt they will return to Mosul. (Washington Post)

Twenty-six years after being forced from Lebanon's presidential palace and into exile by the Syrian army, Michel Aoun is set to be elected head of state on Monday, backed by many of his old enemies. (Reuters)

An air raid by an Arab coalition killed 60 people in Yemen, including inmates of a prison near the city of Hodeidah, medical sources said. (Reuters/New York Times)

Turkey said it had dismissed a further 10,000 civil servants and closed 15 more media outlets over suspected links with terrorist organizations and U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating a failed coup in July. (Reuters)

Commentary:

Roger Cohen says it’s easier to leave Palestinians in limbo waiting for a “peace process” that goes nowhere. (New York Times)

Mohammed Othman says Palestinians are divided over the motives behind recent coordination between Hamas and dismissed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan. (Al-Monitor)

Avi Issacharoff says the PA president has been meeting with the leaders of Turkey, Qatar and Hamas — perhaps because his friends are abandoning him. (Times of Israel)

Aziza Nofal says a recent study found that despite the significant role foreign aid plays in the Palestinian economy, the private sector is not receiving the support it deserves. (Al-Monitor)

Uri Savir says new UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will present innovative and proactive ideas for the United Nations to deepen its involvement in advancing the two-state solution. (Al-Monitor)

Yossi Beilin looks at Pres. Obama's last chance to rectify Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking failures. (Ha'aretz)

Akiva Eldar says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu uses time and again the demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people to sideline the issues of occupation and settlements. (Al-Monitor)

Gideon Eshet says the rhetoric between Jerusalem and Gaza may be filled with deep hatred, but it allows both governments to prove there is no solution; In the meantime, the strip's residents are paying the price. (Ynet)

Emile Hokayem says the weakening of the Islamic State will resurface more potent fault lines. (Washington Post)

Hassan Hassan highlights some underlying troubles of the battle to liberate Mosul that should worry the US-led coalition. (The National)

Hisham Melhem says the new American president will inherit a crumbling region, half of it in a state of conflagration and the other half struggling to protect itself from flames. (Al Arabiya)

ATFP News Roundup October 28, 2016

News:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held a rare meeting with the heads of rival party Hamas in Qatar on Thursday, in direct talks aimed at ending years of hostility between the two movements. (Times of Israel/Ha'aretz)

The security cabinet reportedly approved a series of Palestinian building plans in Area C in the West Bank, in a vote that was held in secret in order not to anger settlers and right-wing activists. (Times of Israel/Ha'aretz)

A slew of Palestinian officials accused Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman of sowing strife among Palestinians, while trying to dethrone PA President Mahmoud Abbas by boosting his rivals. (Times of Israel)

President Reuven Rivlin of Israel visited the family of the 15-year-old boy who was killed by shots fired on the Israel-Egypt border. (JTA)

An Israeli court dropped charges on Wednesday against two Israeli security guards who shot and killed two Palestinian siblings at a checkpoint in April, ruling that there was not sufficient evidence that they had acted improperly. (Ma'an)

The state of Israel has postponed this week its decision regarding the fate of a primary school in the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar in the occupied West Bank, which has been threatened with demolition by the Israeli government for years. (Ma'an)

Several Palestinian youths were injured when Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas during clashes near the Shufat refugee camp in the occupied West Bank district of Jerusalem. (Ma'an)

Israeli authorities temporarily decreased the number of trucks of goods allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip through the Karam Abu Salem crossing on Thursday. (Ma'an)

On a rooftop overlooking the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, around 200 American-Israeli fans of Donald Trump gathered to proclaim their support for the Republican candidate, convinced he will be Israel's best friend if elected. (Reuters)

Experts question legality of non-American donations to Israeli GOP group. (Ha'aretz)

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday said two men from Syria and Turkey have been extradited to face criminal charges that they tried to sell military-grade weapons to purported Mexican drug traffickers to help them ship cocaine to the United States. (Reuters)

Syria should investigate accusations that government forces carried out chlorine gas attacks and Islamic State militants used mustard gas, Russia said on Thursday, dimming Western hopes that U.N. sanctions could be imposed on those responsible. (Reuters)

The Iraqi army was trying on Thursday to reach a town south of Mosul where Islamic State has reportedly executed dozens to deter the population against any attempt to support the U.S.-led offensive on the jihadists' last major city stronghold in Iraq. (Reuters)

When Kurdish fighters cleared Islamic State from the northern Iraqi village of Fadiliya, some residents celebrated by passing around cigarettes - an act that would have earned them a public whipping under the group's reign of terror. (Reuters)

The European Parliament awarded Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar its top human rights prize. (New York Times)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi promised on Thursday to amend a law that human rights groups say has severely restricted protest rights and hinted at possible pardons for young people imprisoned without conviction. (Reuters)

A U.N. peace proposal to end a 19-month war in Yemen appears aimed at sidelining exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and setting up a government of less divisive figures, according to a copy seen by Reuters. (Reuters)

Commentary:

Charles Krauthammer says President Obama could try to force a two-state solution before he leaves office. (Washington Post)

Ahmad Melhem says a Japanese-funded project to protect and exhibit the largest mosaic floor in the Middle East, an ancient creation dating back to the Umayyad period, promises to protect this treasure of Palestinian heritage and attract thousands more visitors to Jericho. (Al-Monitor)

Adnan Abu Amer says Hamas carried out a ministerial reshuffle in the Gaza Strip, claiming to pump new blood into the ministries as the consensus government has failed to meet its responsibilities toward Gaza. (Al-Monitor)

Shlomi Eldar say Israeli physicians say that many cancer patients from the Gaza Strip are banned from entering Israel, and so they are hospitalized in Gaza where there is no adequate medical treatment. (Al-Monitor)

Mathew Reed says the United States has dramatically stepped up attacks on the caliphate’s oil production. But to win this battle, it’s going to have to go scorched earth. (Foreign Policy)

ATFP News Roundup October 27, 2016

News:

A new version of a UNESCO resolution that strongly condemned Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinians territory was approved on Wednesday after widespread uproar from Israel. (Ma'an)

Israel is recalling its ambassador to UNESCO to Jerusalem for consultations in the wake of the adoption of a second resolution that denies Jewish ties to Jerusalem holy sites. (JTA/Times of Israel)

A Trump administration will never pressure Israel into a two-state solution or any other solution that is against the will of the Israeli people,' the GOP candidate's Israel adviser tells rally. (Ha'aretz)

Prosecutors in Israel on Wednesday charged 13 people with inciting violence and terrorism after a wedding video showed far-right Jews dancing with guns and knives and guests mocking the death by arson of a Palestinian toddler. (Reuters/JTA)

Two Israeli security guards will not face charges for shooting dead a Palestinian woman brandishing a knife and her brother, the Justice Ministry said on Wednesday. (Reuters)

An Israeli court in Jerusalem sentenced a Palestinian on Wednesday to 17 years in prison for carrying out a stabbing attack in 2015 in which an Israeli soldier was moderately injured. (Ma'an)

Israeli-enforced demolitions in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Beit Hanina and Silwan on Wednesday left at least 44 Palestinians homeless. (Ma'an)

The Palestinian Authority's preventive security service arrested former spokesperson for the Jerusalem office of the Fatah movement on Tuesday night, shortly after he gave a televised interview commenting on his removal from office days earlier. (Ma'an)

The Israeli military said an Israeli soldier was wounded on Wednesday by shots fired from a vehicle traveling in Lebanon along a border fence, and troops returned fire. (Reuters)

The board of trustees of the Jewish Federations of North America reportedly will be asked to decide whether to allow its missions to Israel to visit Jewish settlements in the West Bank. (JTA)

United Nations aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council on Wednesday that the "buck stops with you" when it comes to ending the nearly six year war in Syria and he is "incandescent with rage" that no action is being taken to do so. (Reuters)

Air strikes by Syrian or Russian warplanes on Wednesday killed at least 26 people, most of them schoolchildren, in a village in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province, rescue workers and a monitoring group said. (Reuters)

The warships were en route to the Mediterranean to bolster the bombing campaign against the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo. (New York Times)

Islamic State militants have in recent days executed dozens of prisoners taken from villages the group has been forced to abandon by an Iraqi army advance on the city of Mosul. (Reuters)

The United States has begun using a Tunisian air base to conduct surveillance drone operations inside Libya, the latest expansion of its campaign against Islamic State militants in North Africa. (Reuters)

Commentary:

Ben Caspit says Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman granted the Palestinian newspaper al-Quds an interview in an attempt to reach out to the Palestinian public while bypassing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (Al-Monitor)

Moath al-Amoudi says while some Palestinian politicos discuss creating a vice presidential position appointed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a transitional safeguard, others complain that the next in line to lead must be elected. (Al-Monitor)

Ari Shavit lookss at Pres. Barack Obama’s 70-day dilemma. (Ha'aretz)

Ahmad Melhem says more Palestinian women are marrying prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails in what they see as an act of patriotism. (Al-Monitor)

Arad Nir says neither Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are particularly enthusiastic about implementing the reconciliation agreement between the two countries. (Al-Monitor)

Amira Hass says a look at a West Bank checkpoint 'that provides the Jews land and rights that it deprives the Palestinians of, a violence of the overlord that is intravenously fed into the veins of every Israeli.' (Ha'aretz)

David Ignatius says the U.S. pattern of recruiting local forces, then abandoning them, is at play again with the Kurdish militia fighting the Islamic State. (Washington Post)

Daniel Byman says the Islamic State is failing everywhere, except, apparently, in American politics. (Washington Post)

ATFP News Roundup October 26, 2016

News:

A group of U.S. senators and congressmen have called on a UNESCO committee to vote against a second resolution that diminishes Jewish and Christian ties to the Old City of Jerusalem. (JTA)

A petition urging the nullification of the recent UNESCO resolution, which strongly condemned Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, was submitted on Tuesday to the organization’s director-general by a group of Israeli organizations. (Ma'an)

Without providing prior warning or an explanation to Ramallah, Saudi Arabia has been holding back financial aid earmarked for the Palestinian Authority for over six months, senior PA officials say. (Times of Israel)

International Relations Commissioner for the Fatah movement Nabil Shaath called on Palestinians to begin a full-fledged consumer boycott of Israel in an interview with The Arab Weekly on Tuesday. (Ma'an)

A leading Palestinian daily came under intense criticism Tuesday from its media peers for “normalization” with Israel — a harsh charge among Palestinians — after it published a full-page interview with Israeli DM Liberman. (Times of Israel)

Intense clashes erupted in three refugee camps Tuesday night between Palestinian youths and Palestinian Authority security forces, after a protest over the recent expulsion from the Fatah party of a Palestinian lawmaker was suppressed. (Times of Israel)

The Israeli national theater, Habima, will perform in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, sparking protests on social media by academics and artists. (JTA)

Israeli artists, academics protest national theater performance in West Bank settlement. (Ha'aretz)

Ongoing protests in the occupied Palestinian territory and around the world have demanded the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a Lebanese militant for Palestinian resistance who has been imprisoned by France for more than 32 years. (Ma'an)

An Israeli internal army investigation into recent incidents of Israeli soldiers killing or severely injuring Palestinians in the occupied West Bank revealed that the lives of Israeli soldiers were not at risk when 15-year-old Khalid Bahr Ahmad Bahr was shot to death after allegedly throwing a stone at a soldier. (Ma'an)

The union for local employees of UNRWA announced on Tuesday that a series of protests would take place in the occupied Palestinian territory after talks with UNRWA reached an impasse. (Ma'an)

Britain and France pushed on Tuesday for the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Syrian government forces blamed for three gas attacks by an international inquiry as Syrian ally Russia said it was still studying the findings. (Reuters)

Russia said on Tuesday it would extend a moratorium on air strikes on Syria's Aleppo into a ninth day, but a monitor and a civil defense official said that rebel-held parts of the divided city had been struck in recent days. (Reuters)

An elite unit of the Iraqi army paused its week-long advance on Mosul as it approached the city's eastern edge on Tuesday, waiting for other U.S.-backed forces to close in on Islamic State's last major urban stronghold in Iraq. (Reuters)

The United States on Tuesday made its strongest indication yet that the battle to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State could be fast approaching, saying it would "overlap" with an already unfolding assault in Iraq to seize the city of Mosul. (Reuters)

The Islamic State is carrying out mass killings and using human shields. Refugees are being turned away over fears terrorist sleeper cells. Burning sulfur has sickened dozens. (New York Times)

The emaciated frame of 18-year-old Saida Ahmad Baghili lies on a hospital bed in the red sea port city of Hodaida, her suffering stark evidence of the malnutrition spread by Yemen's 19-month civil war. (Reuters)

An expanding military role and tough talk placate hard-liners even as Tehran welcomes Western investment and gradually extends new freedoms to Iranians. (New York Times)

Commentary:

Saeb Erekat says as long as Israel continues its settlements, a two-state solution is impossible. (Washington Post)

Adnan Abu Amer says Palestinian activists living abroad report being targeted for airing their criticisms on social media. (Al-Monitor)

Mohammed Othman says the conference on the Palestinian cause held in Ain Sokhna in Egypt stirred controversy among Fatah members supporting Palestinian Pres. Abbas and supporters of dismissed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan. (Al-Monitor)

Akiva Eldar says after the executive director of Israeli human rights group B'Tselem spoke out against settlements before the UN Security Council, the resulting criticism took issue only with his call for international intervention to advance peace. (Al-Monitor)

Shlomi Eldar says actor George Ibrahim appeared at the Acre Fringe Theater Festival almost 30 years after leaving the Israeli art scene and establishing the Al-Kasaba Ramallah Theater. (Al-Monitor)

Stephen Blackwell looks at the possible consequences of a collapse of ISIL in Iraq and Syria. (The National)

Cole Bunzel says the caliphate’s propagandists are digging through the Quran to prove that getting beaten back in Mosul doesn’t stray from the preordained plan. (Foreign Policy)

The New York Times says President Erdogan wants a direct role in the battle against ISIS, but his real priority seems to be defeating Kurdish separatists. (New York Times)

Joyce Karam says the Aoun-Hariri deal is a pact for power and survival by both leaders and a statement of the shifting realpolitik alliances in Lebanon. (Al Arabiya)

ATFP News Roundup October 25, 2016

News:

Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip denounced remarks made by Israeli DM Liebermanduring a rare interview with Palestinian newspaper al-Quds on Monday, calling the ultra right-wing minister's conditional offer to ease the blockade "blackmail." (Ma'an/Times of Israel/Ha'aretz)

UNRWA said that 242 refugee families in the Gaza Strip received more than $1.7 million in aid for reconstruction and repair works. (Ma'an)

A member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, was killed in Gaza on Monday after an underground tunnel collapsed on him. (Ma'an/Times of Israel)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Monday in an ongoing effort to improve Turkish-Palestinian relations. (Ma'an)

Egyptian authorities closed the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip late on Sunday night after two weeks of discontinuous openings to let travelers in and out of the besieged Palestinian territory. (Ma'an)

Islamic State expanded its attacks on Monday against the army and Kurdish forces across Iraq, trying to relieve pressure on the militant group's defenses around Mosul, its last major urban stronghold in the country. (Reuters)

Turkish artillery fire has already played a role in the effort to drive Islamic State from the Iraqi city of Mosul and four Turkish fighter jets are on standby to take part in air operations, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday. (Reuters)

Syrian refugee children have been working in factories in Turkey making clothes for British high street retailer Marks & Spencer and online store ASOS, an investigation by BBC Panorama found. (Reuters)

Lebanon's parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, believes that even if Michel Aoun is elected president next week after a vacancy of more than two years forming a government will take from five to six months, he was quoted as saying in a newspaper on Monday. (Reuters)

The next president faces problems more daunting than any in a generation, as the old order has given way to a kaleidoscopic mix of alliances, rivalries and overlapping crises. (New York Times)

Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, Former Emir of Qatar, dies at 84. (New York Times)

Commentary:

Ha'aretz says the occupation must end — that’s the flag that must unite Israel's opposition. (Ha'aretz)

Odeh Bisharat says "thank you, B'Tselem, for exposing the skeletons in Israel's closet. (Ha'aretz)

Shlomi Eldar says with new Israeli encroachment in the name of security and restrictions on the importation of chemicals and fertilizers, even more of Gaza's farmers are being forced to abandon their lands despite a near-total lack of other employment options. (Al-Monitor)

Ben Caspit says Russia has extended its presence in the region to such an extent that any IDF jet crossing the Israeli border in the north immediately appears on Russian military radar screens. (Al-Monitor)

Hassan Hassan says ISIS will retreat into the desert, just as it did in 2007. But can we stop it from re-emerging? (New York Times)

Josh Rogin asks if Hillary Clinton will deliver on her promise to ramp up U.S. involvement in Syria. (Washington Post)

Abdul Rahman Al Rashed says the battles of Mosul and Aleppo are just two other wars in a long struggle that will not stabilize without a fair political project. (Al Arabiya)

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