UNRWA chief slams Israeli seizure of East Jerusalem compound
Israel explains why they seized a UN compound in Jerusalem and raised the Jewish state’s flag as Benjamin Netanyahu announces he is going to the US to meet Donald Trump following a secret summit.
The chief of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees denounced the Israeli authorities’ seizure of assets from its east Jerusalem compound on Monday, which police told AFP was part of a debt-collection operation.
“Israeli police accompanied by municipal officials forcibly entered the UNRWA compound in East Jerusalem”, Philippe Lazzarini said on X.
With trucks and forklifts, the authorities took “furniture, IT equipment and other property”, and the compound’s United Nations flag was replaced with an Israeli one, Lazzarini added.
Lazzarini has been declared persona non grata by Israeli authorities, who banned his agency from operating inside the country early this year.
Israeli police told AFP in a statement that the seizures were “carried out by the Jerusalem municipality as part of a debt-collection procedure”.
“Police are present to secure the municipality’s activity,” the statement said. Jerusalem police spokesman Dean Elsdunne told AFP that the debt collection was related to the Arnona, an Israeli residence tax that covers municipal services.
But Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the West Bank and east Jerusalem, disputed that assessment.
“There is no debt because the United Nations – and UNRWA is part of the United Nations and is a UN agency – is not required to pay any kind of taxes of that kind under international law and under the law that Israel itself has adopted,” he said.
Under a 1946 convention, the UN and its assets must not be taxed by host countries.
The compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem has been empty of UNRWA staff since January, when the law banning its operations took effect after a months-long battle over its work in the Gaza Strip.
Israel had accused UNRWA of providing cover for Hamas militants, and the legislation also forbids contact between the agency and Israeli officials.
Though the ban applies in east Jerusalem due to its annexation by Israel, the agency still operates in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
“Whatever action taken domestically, the compound retains its status as a UN premises, immune from any form of interference,” Lazzarini said.
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TRUMP TO HOST NETANYAHU FOLLOWING SECRET MEETING
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump in America on December 29, his office has confirmed.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, Mr Netanyahu will be in the US from December 28 through January 4.
This means Mr Netanyahu will likely be on the guest list for Mr Trump’s famed New Year’s Eve bash at Mar-a-Lago.
It comes as secret trilateral talks between the US, Israel and Qatar were reportedly held in New York over the weekend.
Axios reports the talks, which have not been confirmed by any of the nations involved, were held in order to smooth tensions which have existed since Israel attacked Hamas leaders in Doha during ceasefire talks in September.
White House envoy Steve Witkoff is hosting the talks, according to the outlet, with Israel represented by Mossad spy chief David Barnea and Qatar by an unnamed senior official.
ISRAEL KILLS TWO IN WEST BANK AFTER ALLEGED RAMMING ATTACK
Israel’s military said that its forces killed two males in the occupied West Bank after what it described as an attempted ramming attack, with the Palestinian Authority identifying the deceased as a 17- and 55-year-old.
The Ramallah-based health ministry named the two victims as Ahmad Khalil Al-Rajabi, 17, and Ziad Jabara Abu Dawoud, 55, after the incident in the Bab al-Zawiya area in the city of Hebron.
The older man was a sanitation worker, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. The Israeli army said the shooting took place after an attempted ramming attack against its troops stationed at a checkpoint.
“A terrorist accelerated toward (Israeli) soldiers during an operational activity at a security checkpoint in Hebron. The soldiers responded by firing at the terrorist in the vehicle and he was eliminated,” the army told AFP.
The military added that a second “uninvolved person” was hit but did not provide further information.
Israel’s army radio said that according to a preliminary investigation, the “uninvolved” victim was the sanitation worker, who was travelling in a different vehicle than the one used for the attempted attack.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence in the territory has soared since Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.
It has not ceased despite the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them militants, but also scores of civilians, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.
At least 44 Israelis, including both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.
Meanwhile, Qatar and Egypt, guarantors of the Gaza ceasefire, called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the deployment of an international stabilisation force as the necessary next steps in fully implementing the fragile agreement.
“Now we are at the critical moment … A ceasefire cannot be completed unless there is a full withdrawal of the Israeli forces (and) there is stability back in Gaza,” Qatari premier Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told the Doha Forum, an annual diplomatic conference.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he expected to move into the second phase of the US-sponsored ceasefire plan for Gaza “very shortly”.
Speaking during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz after a meeting between the two leaders, Mr Netanyahu said: “We discussed how to bring an end to the Hamas rule in Gaza … We finished the first part.
“And then we very shortly expect to move into the second phase, which is more difficult.”
He also said that he would meet US President Donald Trump later this month to discuss “opportunities for peace” in the region.
Under the terms of the ceasefire that entered into force on October 10, Palestinian militants committed to releasing 47 living and dead captives seized during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
All of the hostages have so far been released except for the body of an Israeli police officer.
“And now we have a second phase, no less daunting, and that is to achieve the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarisation of Gaza,” Mr Netanyahu added.
“There’s a third phase, and that is to deradicalise Gaza, something that also people believed was impossible. But it was done in Germany, it was done in Japan, it’s done in the Gulf states, can be done in Gaza too,” the Israeli premier said.
It comes as US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas were both visiting Jordan on Sunday to discuss humanitarian aid for Gaza.
EUROVISION FACES MASS BOYCOTT OVER ISRAEL PARTICIPATION
The Eurovision Song Contest – the world’s largest live music competition – faced the prospect of mass withdrawals, after organisers opted not to vote on Israel’s future participation, allowing it to take part in next year’s event.
Widespread opposition to the war in Gaza had led to mounting calls for Israel to be excluded from the annual contest, and after suspicions about the manipulation of the voting system.
But the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said after a meeting in Geneva that there had been “clear support” among members for reforms implemented to “reinforce trust and protect neutrality”.
“A large majority of members agreed that there was no need for a further vote on participation and that the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 should proceed as planned, with the additional safeguards in place,” a statement read.
Yet moments after the EBU statement public broadcasters in Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands – who had all backed Israel’s exclusion – said their countries would not take part next year.
“The situation in Gaza, despite the ceasefire and the approval of the peace process, and the use of the contest for political goals by Israel, makes it increasingly difficult to keep Eurovision a neutral cultural event,” said Alfonso Morales, the secretary-general of Spain’s RTVE.
Ireland’s RTE said its participation would be “unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk”.
AVROTROS in the Netherlands said a Dutch presence at next year’s event “cannot be reconciled with the public values that are fundamental to our organisation”.
Iceland has previously threatened to withdraw, while others, including Belgium, Finland and Sweden, have also said they were considering a boycott over the situation in Gaza.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said his country “deserves to be represented on every stage around the world”, following the announcement that it can take part in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
“I am pleased that Israel will once again participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, and I hope that the competition will remain one that champions culture, music, friendship between nations, and cross-border cultural understanding,” Herzog said on X.
“Thank you to all our friends who stood up for Israel’s right to continue to contribute and compete at Eurovision. This decision demonstrates solidarity, fellowship, and co-operation, and reinforces the spirit of affinity between nations through culture and music.”
NETANYAHU TAUNTS NEW NYC MAYOR
Benjamin Netanyahu taunted Zohran Mamdani, saying he would return to New York, defying the socialist mayor-elect’s pledge to have him arrested on charges of war crimes.
“I’ll come to New York,” Mr Netanyahu told the DealBook Summit at Lincoln Center on Wednesday via video from Israel. “Yes, of course I will.”
Mamdani vowed during the election campaign to impose an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister in connection with the war in Gaza.
Mr Netanyahu also told the forum he wouldn’t meet with the Democratic mayor unless he accepted Israel’s right to exist.
“If [Mamdani] changes his mind and says that we have the right to exist, that’ll be a good opening for a conversation,” Mr Netanyahu said in response to a question about whether he would ask to speak with the mayor-elect.
Meanwhile, Mr Netanyahu is headed back to the US this month for his fifth visit since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, and his first since the ceasefire went into effect in Gaza.
The Times of israel reports that Mr Netanyahu’s office put out a statement saying the president invited Mr Netanyahu back to the US “in the near future,” and that the trip would likely come days after the Christmas holiday, potentially at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
ISRAEL STRIKES LEBANON
Israeli raids hit south Lebanon as Israel’s military said it was striking Hezbollah targets, a day after Lebanese and Israeli civilian representatives held their first direct talks in decades.
Despite a November 2024 ceasefire that was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group, Israel has kept up strikes on Lebanon and has also maintained troops in five south Lebanon areas it deems strategic.
The Israeli army said it “began conducting strikes on Hezbollah terror targets in southern Lebanon”, after warning it would strike buildings in south Lebanon’s Mahrouna and Jbaa.
It subsequently issued warnings it would strike further Hezbollah “military infrastructure” in Majadal and Baraasheet, also in the south.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency said “Israeli warplanes launched a strike on the town of Mahrouna” while other raids targeted buildings in Jbaa, Majadal and Baraasheet.
An AFP photographer saw smoke rising from the site of the strike in the town of Jbaa.
— with AFP
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