President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has put together a new paramilitary force of men and women, some trained by key ally Iran, to fight what is now becoming a guerrilla war, a watchdog said Monday.

The force, dubbed the National Defense Army, gathers together existing popular committees of pro-regime civilian fighters under a new, better-trained and armed hierarchy, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The popular committees were originally formed to protect pro-regime neighborhoods from rebels.

“The [regular] army is not trained to fight a guerrilla war, so the regime has resorted to creating the National Defense Army,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Most of the new fighters are members or supporters of the ruling Baath party, said Abdel Rahman. “They include men and women, and members of all the sects.”

The new force is not connected to the pro-regime shabiha militia, which the army and security forces have deployed ever since the outbreak of an anti-regime revolt to help it suppress dissent across the country.

Members of the paramilitary force, like the popular committees before, will focus on fighting in their own neighborhoods.

On Friday, Moscow’s Russia Today reported on its website that the new National Defense Army was being set up to “defend districts against gunmen.”

“The Syrian authorities are set to create … a National Defense Army, parallel to regime forces, so that the [regular] army is freed up for combat,” the website reported citing an unnamed official.

Abdel Rahman, whose Observatory relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground, said Iran was involved in building the paramilitary force.

“The paramilitary force includes an elite fighting force trained by Iran,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.

“Iran has provided training to the paramilitary force’s commando fighters.”

Iran, Damascus’ key regional ally, staunchly backs Assad and in September 2012 said its elite Quds Force, which is tasked with carrying out operations outside the Islamic republic, was giving Damascus “counsel and advice.”

On the ground, an activist said the new force was already active in the central province of Homs.

“The number of regime fighters in the province has swelled in recent days, as the National Defense Army has started to come into action,” anti-regime activist Hadi al-Abdullah told AFP via the Internet from the rebel-held town of Qusayr.

01/21/2013

09/12/12

08/12/12

Fierce battle between Bashar Al-Assad regime and opposition fighters near Damascus where at least 32 people killed

Syrian troops battled rebels near Damascus on Saturday and launched air strikes on opposition strongholds in the south of the capital and on its northeastern outskirts, a watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave an initial toll of 49 people killed nationwide, including 16 civilians and 16 rebels killed in Damascus province alone.

To the northeast of the capital, seven civilians including a child were killed in heavy army shelling on the town of Misraba.

Nearby, warplanes bombarded the town of Douma and areas between Harasta and Irbin, said the watchdog, adding that 10 rebels were killed in fierce clashes with troops in the area.

The Observatory also reported three rebels and two civilians killed in shelling on southern areas of the capital, including in Daraya, where troops had launched a major military operation to try and seize control of the town.

For several days, the army has pounded rebel strongholds on the capital’s outskirts, where the fighters have set up their rear bases, raising fears of a looming ground assault.

Abu Kinan, an activist in Daraya, said that clashes had broken out between the rebel Free Syrian Army and government troops to the east and west of Daraya.

“The army is getting reinforcements and has arrested more than 80 displaced people who were living in the surrounding areas, just because they are from Daraya,” he told AFP via Skype.

He said that the army had not yet succeeded in entering the town, the scene in August of the single deadliest massacre of the 21-month conflict.

State television reported that the army had “destroyed a number of vehicles and motorcycles used by terrorists” in Harasta and Daraya.

The Observatory said that the army mounted attacks on rebel positions near the borders with Turkey and Israel.

Air strikes struck the northern town of Tal Abyad near Turkey, the Britain-based watchdog said, while shells fell on the villages of Bir Ajam and Al-Buraykah in the Syrian side of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In the northwestern province of Idlib, four men were killed in air strikes on the village of Kfar Lateh, and warplanes also bombed Maaret al-Numan and the nearby village of Has, killing two men and leaving 15 others wounded.

In Aleppo province in the north, warplanes pounded the towns of Aazaz and Jarablus, and targeted rebel positions around the Meng military airport which is ringed by several battalions.

More than 42,000 people have been killed since the uprising erupted in March last year, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, lawyers and medics on the ground.

07/12/12

Source: Agence France-Presse
Country: Lebanon, Syrian Arab Republic (the)

12/07/2012 17:45 GMT

TRIPOLI, Lebanon, Dec 7, 2012 (AFP) - Snipers in the north Lebanese city of Tripoli on Friday fired across a street-turned-frontline that divides two districts wracked by deadly sectarian clashes, an AFP correspondent said.

On Tuesday, intermittent clashes erupted in between the city’s Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen districts, pitting Sunnis against Alawites belonging to the same religious community as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A total of 13 people — including a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old — were shot dead by snipers across Syria Street dividing the neighbourhoods.

The majority of Tripoli’s residents are Sunni Muslim and support the anti-Assad revolt in neighbouring Syria. A minority of Alawites support the regime, and fear potential sectarian violence should Assad fall.

Tensions in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city, remained high on Friday as snipers held their positions, occasionally opening fire.

The death toll reached 11 by Thursday evening, while two other civilians were killed overnight, a security official[…]

06/12/12

Putin said new ideas emerged at talks in Turkey

* Spokesman says unclear whether ideas acceptable to Syrians

* Russia says it opposes forced removal of Assad

By Alexei Anishchuk

ASHGABAT, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Russian and Turkish diplomats will soon start working on new ideas for ending the conflict in Syria which emerged in talks between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

Putin and Erdogan agreed to differ on Syria at Monday’s talks in Istanbul but Russia has distanced itself from President Bashar al-Assad and tried to position itself for his potential exit from power.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed diplomats would discuss what Putin said were “some new, fresh ideas” but gave no details.

“It was agreed that these ideas will be discussed in more detail by our diplomats in the very near future, in order to understand how viable they are and how great their potential to resolve (the Syrian crisis),” Peskov said.

“It is still unclear to what degree they might be acceptable to the sides in Syria itself,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a summit of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat.

Russia has shielded Assad by blocking, along with China, three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at pushing him out or pressing him to end violence that has killed more than 40,000 people since a crackdown on protests began in March 2011.

Turkey - worried about Syria’s chemical weapons, a growing refugee crisis, and Syrian support for Kurdish militants - has backed the Syrian opposition and led calls for international action against Assad.

After talks with Erdogan, Putin said Russia and Turkey still disagreed about how to end the crisis in Syria.

Russian officials have repeatedly said Moscow is not insisting Assad remain in power, but that his fate must not be decided by foreign governments or other external forces, including the U.N. Security Council.

“The exit or the continuation of the Assad regime is absolutely not a must,” Peskov said.

“But we cannot say, sitting in Ankara or London or Qatar, that Assad must go. That cannot be, it is not viable - such decisions could potentially lead to a worsening of the situation,” he said.

Putin, who returned to the presidency in May, has made Syria a showcase of what he says is the determination to protect the principle of non-intervention in sovereign states.

Russia has warned the West it would not allow a repeat in Syria of last year’s events in Libya, where NATO military intervention helped rebels to topple dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

But the talk of considering fresh ideas suggested Russia is looking for ways to end the diplomatic deadlock or at least cast itself as part of a solution, and position itself for the possibility of Assad’s exit.

“Russians are now looking beyond Assad,” said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think-tank.

“I don’t think they will change their position on the basic issues such as ‘regime change’ or outside intervention but I think they will be looking at the day after, what happens when the government falls,” he said.

Putin’s Middle East affairs envoy, Mikhail Bogdanov, met the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the request of the United States on Tuesday and the British ambassador on Wednesday, Russian’s Foreign Ministry said. The focus was on Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian situation but details were not announced.

Russia has stepped up meetings with Syrian opposition groups, seemingly hedging its bets.

“I would not rule out that behind the scenes, (Russia) could be trying to find a way to solve ‘the Assad problem’,” a Western diplomat said.

That could be easier said than done.

“Russia’s influence over Assad has been widely exaggerated,” Trenin said. “The Russians have very unfortunately manoeuvred themselves into a situation in which they are considered to be responsible for Assad without any real influence over him.”

06/12/12

An undated photo provided by the Syrian state news agency shows heavy artillery firing at a military exercise. (SANA — Associated Press)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stressed that, should Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his desperation deploy some of his chemical weapons stockpile against his own people, he will cross “a red line for the United States.” She warned, “suffice to say we are certainly planning to take action.”

Some observers have belittled the chemical weapons red line, arguing that it’s silly for the United States to distinguish so assiduously between which military tool Assad happens to use in a campaign that has killed, and often targeted, thousands of civilians. “Blowing your people up with high explosives is allowable,” Dominic Tierney wrote at TheAtlantic.com, “as is shooting them, or torturing them. But woe betide the Syrian regime if it even thinks about using chemical weapons!” Isn’t this hypocritical? Worse, does it risk unintentionally encouraging Assad’s use of conventional weapons?” An article at Foreign Policy notes that drawing the chemical weapons “red line” might “implicitly signal that [the U.S.] would not intervene otherwise, potentially emboldening the Assad regime.”

So why go to all the trouble of drawing a red line around chemical weapons? Why make such a big deal over them when Assad is already killing so many Syrians without them? I can’t tell you what’s happening inside Clinton’s brain, or behind closed doors at the White House or State Department, but there is a long-established international norm against chemical weapons. And that norm has value well beyond this one conflict in this one country.

It would certainly be nice if we lived in a world where conventional weapons were never used or at least never used against civilians, and that’s a goal worth aspiring to. But we live in a world where we still have to manage the conflicts we can’t prevent. As long as war is a facet of human existence, it’s worth upholding the norm that states do not use chemical weapons in those wars.

Chemical weapons were not always so taboo. The norm against their use was first established by the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which came at the enormous cost of World War I. That treaty and the norm it enforced didn’t prevent chemical weapons from being used during World War II, but it did perhaps contribute to their absence from European fronts and to Japan’s decision to use them more sparingly than they likely would have otherwise. World War II was still awful, but it was considerably less awful than if chemical weapons had been used as widely as they were in the previous world war.

Syria’s violence is likewise still terrible even without chemical weapons, but it is less terrible than it would almost certainly be if the state felt it could freely deploy its vast chemical weapons. And, as long as there are conflicts involving states that possess or have access to chemical weapons, those conflicts will be less deadly if the chemical weapons remain locked up.

The U.S. record in enforcing the norm against chemical weapons is not perfect. During the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, in which the United States sometimes backed Saddam Hussein’s effort against a mutual Iranian enemy, Iraq’s use of chemical weapons was at times overlooked. The history of what exactly the United States knew about Saddam’s chemical attacks as they happened and why it chose to respond (or, more accurately, not respond) as it did is still shrouded in some mystery. But an investigation by Joost Hiltermann of Human Rights Watch concluded that the United States may have played down the reports, or at least avoided calling attention to them. Though Saddam of course fell many years later, he suffered relatively little at the time for his decision to use chemical weapons.

According to a Foreign Affairs review of Hiltermann’s book on the Iraqi gas attacks, “the fallout of these developments has been an enhanced readiness among states to stock and prepare to use weapons of mass destruction [and] an Iran set on never again being without such weapons.” Whether or not that’s an accurate characterization of countries’ motivation in amassing chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, it highlights the potentially wide-reaching and long-term risks of even a single incident of chemical weapons usage. That risk alone underscores the importance of the international norm against chemical weapons, and informs why the United States is so insistent on upholding it.

06/12/12

By By BEN HUBBARD | Associated Press

Associated Press/Narciso Contreras - In this Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012 photo, a Free Syrian Army fighter aims his weapon during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria. (AP Photo/Narciso Contre

04/12/12

Syria, Latakia: The Regime’s Crimes

Against Christians

Criminality has no religion, and the criminality of the Syrian regime does not differentiate between Muslims or Christians . The Syrian regime forces shelled mosques as they bombed churches; they killed Muslims and Christians. Bashar al-Assad applies the meaning of the phrase “No to Sectarianism” in his own way.

18/11/12

“If Bashar is staying until the last Russian bullet, then we will stay until the last shout for freedom.” #Syria

18/11/12

Is it time to arm the Syrian opposition?

18/11/12

With Syria embroiled in civil conflict, immigrant community in Sao Paulo is at odds over support for the ruling regime.

Gabriel Elizondo

Inside Club Homs, the names of the first 400 Syrians immigrants are engraved in granite [Gabriel Elizondo/Al Jazeera]

Sao Paulo, Brazil - The ornate conference room looks like what you might expect to find in an office of a top government minister in Syria: Comfortable chairs neatly organised around an oval, perfectly polished oak table, tasteful pieces of Arab art lining the walls, and long drapes over the windows. Directly in the centre, at eye level, is a framed photo of stoic-looking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But this is not Damascus, rather the view from inside Club Homs, a decades-old social club rooted and named after the first group of Syrian immigrants to Brazil.

Club Homs sits on busy Avenida Paulista - one of the busiest streets in Sao Paulo. But with its discreet and simple lettering in front, the club is easy to walk right past without noticing.

The club is a symbol of the first group of 400 Syrian immigrants - all from Homs and most Christians - who came to Brazil at the invitation of Brazilian emperor Don Pedro II, ruler from 1831-1889, a worldly globetrotter who spoke Arabic among multiple other languages.

Today look around Sao Paulo and symbols of Syrian influence are evident in the Hospital Sirio-Libanes (Syrian-Lebanese Hospital), the Syrian Arab Republic Viaduct, the Syrian Orthodox Cathedral, the Esporte Clube Sirio (Syrian Sports Club), not to mention dozens of shops and restaurants downtown run by Syrians.

There are no exact statistics, but it’s generally accepted there are about four million people in Brazil who are citizens or descendents of Syria, according to Tammam Daaboul, a Syrian writer in Sao Paulo who runs arabesq.com.br

With Syria embroiled in escalating civil conflict, those in Sao Paulo find themselves largely divided, just like their homeland.

On one side there is Eduardo Elias, a descendant from Syria, a longtime member of Club Homs and current president of the Federation of Arab Entities in Brazil.

Elias is deeply troubled by the conflict in Syria, but stands behind al-Assad.

“I think it’s my obligation, as a son of a Syrian immigrant,” Elias said. “I swore to my father that I would always defend Syria, and I always will. This conflict cannot continue. What is happening in Syria is foreign fighters that are attacking and it’s also Syrians that are not thinking of their country, only power and politics.”

As Elias sits in the conference room at Club Homs, he enjoys telling stories of his more than two dozen trips back to Syria, and showing photographs of himself with al-Assad and his wife Asma when they visited Brazil in 2010.

“When Assad came here to Sao Paulo, he made a speech, and he gave us a big responsibility,” Elias remembers. “He said, ‘each one of you is an ambassador to Syria, be good citizens to make Syria bigger.’ I had a private conversation with him, and it didn’t seem to me that he was evil or the devil that everyone now is making him out to be.”

Different points of view

But on the other side of the city, in a small house in a working class neighbourhood, the view is very different.

That is where Amer Masarani, a Syrian who has lived in Sao Paulo for 15 years, is hunched over his desktop computer updating the anti-Assad Facebook page he manages that also serves as a support network for Syrian refugees in Brazil.

This year there have been 90 requests with Brazilian immigration authorities by Syrians looking for refugee status. Thirty-four have been granted, and the others still being evaluated.

Once Syrians arrive in Brazil, one of the first people they call is Masarani.

“We are receiving refugees here who bring their kids who are now so traumatised by what they have seen and heard in Syria,” Masarani told Al Jazeera.

“There is one child, only two years old, who just came from Syria with the parents, and when there is an explosion or a balloon pops they cry and go under the table thinking it is shooting.

“And I see these pictures of dead children. What did they do? Are they to blame for their own death because their father doesn’t want Assad in power? Assad is killing his own people. He is the worst dictator ever.”

On a recent evening at Masarani’s house, there are six other immigrants from Syria, one of whom, Jehad Mohamed, recently fled when some of his family members were arrested and tortured by al-Assad security forces, he says.

‘I can’t go back, and they can’t leave’

In another neighborhood of Sao Paulo there is Ahmed, a young Syrian who served two and a half years in the army in his country. He asked that his real name not be used in fear of repercussions.

Ahmed has lived in Sao Paulo for one year, and is fearful to return to his homeland because he’s still a reserve in the Syrian army. He says he would certainly be called up to fight with al-Assad forces, something he said he won’t do because he is against the regime.

He’s worried about his mother and other family back home, but they are too afraid to leave in fear of something happening to their home while away and then losing everything.

“I can’t go back, and they can’t leave,” Ahmed said matter of factly. “It’s all so complicated.”

The uncertainty with the Syrian community in Brazil can be traced back to a generation divide, according to Daaboul, the Syrian writer.  

“The group that supports the Assad government in Brazil is born from fear and worries that Syria could turn into an Islamic state, which could harm the interests of the Christians, most of whom are the early immigrants to Brazil,” Daaboul said. “The opposition to Assad is coming from recent immigrants who know more about the current socio-political situation, and who don’t believe the argument about sectarian violence.”

All sides do share two things in common, namely, a genuine love for their homeland, and a frustration in watching from so far away as it spirals into further violence.

“Everyone is praying for this to be over soon,” Elias said, pausing and taking a deep breath before adding, “But I personally think it will go on for a long time.”

16/11/12

(Reuters) - A Syrian general and a dozen other officers defected with their families to Turkey on Friday, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported, following heavy fighting on Turkey’s southeastern border with Syria.

Ankara said on Friday it had “intensified” talks with its NATO allies on steps to shore up security on the 900 km (560 mile) frontier with the 20-month civil war in Syria at stalemate.

State-run Anatolian agency said 53 people had crossed the border - one general, 12 other officers and an unspecified number of soldiers and their families.

They crossed into Turkey’s southern Hatay province and were sent by local authorities to the Apaydin refugee camp, Today’s Zaman newspaper reported on its website.

A foreign ministry official could not immediately confirm the report. It follows the reported defection on November 9 of 26 military officers, including two generals.

With winter setting in, dozens of Syrian military officers are holed up in Turkish camps, along with about 120,000 civilian refugees.

Alarmed by the refugee influx and the instability on its border, Turkey has called for the creation of a buffer zone inside Syria and is in talks with NATO on the possible deployment of Patriot surface-to-air missiles.

Concern in Ankara deepened this week with an air assault by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad on the rebel-held frontier town of Ras al-Ain.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Friday Ankara had stepped up consultations with NATO.

“This week especially we intensified our consultations regarding the security risks on our border,” Davutoglu told Reuters in Addis Ababa, speaking in English.

Turkey says the deployment of Patriot missiles would be a defensive step, but it could also be a prelude to a no-fly zone inside Syria to limit Assad’s air power.

Turkey scrambled fighter jets to the border on Wednesday, the third day of an air assault by Syrian warplanes trying to dislodge rebels in Ras al-Ain. The town was largely quiet on Thursday and Friday.

16/11/12

Extent of the detainees went out of the prisons of the occupation Assad!

15/11/12

Syrian rebels celebrating a takeover of Ceylanpinar, a Turkish border town, on Thursday.

ISTANBUL — Turkey made it clear on Thursday that it officially recognized a newly formed rebel coalition as the legitimate leader of the Syrian people, an important step in the group’s effort to attract legitimacy and, it hopes, more weapons to bring about the end of President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Turkey “once again reiterates its recognition of the Syrian national coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people,” Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said in a speech at an Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Djibouti, the tiny country on the Horn of Africa.

The announcement by Turkey, Syria’s northern neighbor and a haven for thousands of Syrian refugees and rebel fighters, was the third significant recognition of the new group this week. On Monday, members of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait — recognized the group, known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. On Tuesday, France became the first Western country to do so, and said it was considering providing arms to the insurgent groups within Syria that have been engaged in a 20-month-long war with the government that has claimed nearly 40,000 lives.

Mr. Davutoglu’s comments on Thursday followed a statement by Turkey’s Foreign Ministry earlier in the week in which it urged other nations to recognize the coalition. That statement was meant to convey that Turkey itself recognized the new group, but it was not widely reported that way.

Turkey, along with Arab and Western countries, had pressured the Syrian political opposition, which had been seen as fractious and ineffectual, to realign itself as a broader coalition that included more officials from within Syria, which it did on Sunday after several days of wrangling in Doha, Qatar. The previous group, the Syrian National Council, had been nurtured by Turkey and was based in Istanbul, but came to be seen as a failure whose lack of credibility among the rebel fighting groups, loosely aligned under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, was an impediment to more aggressive involvement by other Arab and Western nations.

In his speech, Mr. Davutoglu ticked off the staggering human toll of Syria’s uprising, which began as peaceful protests in March 2011. He said more than 39,000 people have been killed, 2.5 million people had been displaced within Syria, and hundreds of thousands of refugees had fled to neighboring countries, including Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. In Turkey alone, he said, 120,000 Syrians are residing in camps, and nearly 70,000 others are living elsewhere in the country.

Mr. Davutoglu also reiterated Turkey’s contention that Mr. Assad, once a close friend of Turkey’s, had lost all credibility and legitimacy because of his government’s repression of the opposition.

“The reason behind the ongoing tragedy is the Syrian regime that has refused to acknowledge the legitimate demands of the Syrians and has chosen to try to rule its people by brutal force,” he said.

Turkey has been perhaps the most vocal and aggressive supporter of the Syrian opposition, and has long pushed for more international engagement in the conflict, which could be forthcoming as the new opposition coalition continues to gain legitimacy. On Thursday, according to The Associated Press, France’s foreign minister suggested that “defensive weapons” be provided to the rebels, and that the European Union should reconsider its arms embargo against Syria.

As the war has dragged on, Turkey’s support for the Syrian rebels has become a domestic issue for the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is facing a backlash from its own public over the mounting toll of the war because the fighting has brought cross-border trade to a halt and the influx of refugees has raised tensions in border communities.

15/11/12

Tehran describes Israeli offensive as “organized

terrorism”; Assad denounces Israel’s “heinous

atrocities.”

Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl / Reuters

Iran condemned on Thursday as “organized terrorism” an offensive by Israel against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

“Iran considers the criminal act of Israeli military forces in killing civilians as organized terrorism and strongly condemns it,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

The spokesman also criticized what he called “the silence of international organizations claiming to defend human rights,” following the strikes.

Iran’s condemnation followed a statement by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime on Wednesday denouncing Israeli “atrocities” in Gaza.

“The Syrian government condemns the heinous atrocities committed by the enemy Israeli army against the Arab Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” AFP quoted a statement carried by the official Syrian news agency SANA as saying.

Assad concluded by urging the international community to “pressure Israel to stop the sinful aggression on our people in the defiant Gaza Strip.”

Meanwhile, Lebanese President Michel Sleiman on Thursday also condemned as “barbaric” Israel’s ongoing operation in Gaza, according to Lebanon’s Daily Star.

“The open war against Gaza, which Israel started with barbaric aggression, is not unusual for Israeli policy that only uses the language of killing and destruction,” Sleiman reportedly said in a statement.

“It is about time for the enemy to realize that the aggression policy has been proven futile,” Sleiman added.

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri also weighed in, saying “Israel’s renewed attacks against Gaza prove the aggressive policy adopted by Israel against Palestinians and Arabs in general.

“Israel insists on keeping control over Palestinian territories and preventing all attempts to establish an independent Palestinian State,” he said.