By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Israel anxiously entered the “Shabbat,” the weekly Jewish day of rest, after the 22-member Arab League sought to dispatch troops to Jerusalem, Judea, and Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank.
The Arab League’s “Manama Declaration,” seen by Worthy News on Friday, called for “international protection and peacekeeping forces of the United Nations” in what they called “the occupied Palestinian territories” until a two-state solution was found.
Arab states are part of the United Nations, and at least some of the troops are expected to come from countries that in the past have attacked Israel.
The statement, issued during a summit in Bahrain, unilaterally blamed the Jewish state’s “obstruction” for the failure to reach a truce deal with the Hamas terror organization.
“We stress the need to stop the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip immediately, withdraw the Israeli occupation forces from all areas of the Strip [and] lift the siege imposed on it,” the Arab League said.
“We strongly condemn Israel’s obstruction of cease-fire efforts in the Gaza Strip and its continued military escalation by expanding its aggression against the Palestinian city of Rafah,” it added.
Israel has defended its plan to enter Rafah, saying the final four Hamas battalions, composed of some 3,000 terrorists, are holed up in the city along the Egyptian border.
ARMED GROUPS
The Manama statement also urged armed Palestinian groups, deemed terrorists by Israel, to join under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), ruled by Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party.
Abbas, who also heads the Palestinian Authority, said Hamas’s October 7 massacre gave the Jewish state “more pretexts and justifications to attack the Gaza Strip.”
Abbas called the October massacre of some 1,200 Israelis, including raped women and babies, a “military operation which Hamas unilaterally carried out.” He did not condemn the deadliest single-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, but seemed to address its tactical implications.
Yet Hamas condemned Abbas for suggesting that the group had given Israel a pretext to attack Gaza. “We express our regret regarding the remarks made by the president of the Palestinian Authority… at the Arab summit held in Manama,” Hamas said in a statement.
Hamas added, “Since 1948, the Zionist enemy has never waited for excuses to commit crimes against our people,” using the term it uses to describe Israel and Jewish people.
Besides criticizing Hamas, Abbas demanded that Arab nations increase support for the Palestinians, saying Ramallah has not received the funding it expected.
Egyptian President Abdel al-Fatah al-Sisi condemned Israel’s move to increase military pressure on Hamas to bring about the release of about 132 hostages still being held in Gaza.
‘NO MILITARY SOLUTION’
“Those who think that security and military solutions are able to secure interests or achieve security [are] delusional,” al-Sisi added.
Yet, during an Arab League summit earlier this year, a top Qatari official reportedly told representatives that there can be no negotiations with Israel as the Jewish people are “slayers of prophets.”
Essa bin Ahmad al-Nassr, who serves on the Shura Council legislature and holds the rank of brigadier-general in the Qatari Armed Forces’ elite Emiri Guard protection unit, threatened Israel’s annihilation, according to sources familiar with the talks.
In his remarks to the Arab League, al-Nassr said that “there can be no peace or negotiations with the Zionist entity [Israel] for one reason and one reason only: Their faith does not allow for negotiations.”
However, Israel has shown flexibility, not Hamas repeatedly impeded a deal, U.S. State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said on April 15.
Yet Hamas says Israel should first halt the fighting amid an increasing death toll.
DIFFERENT ESTIMATES
Hamas-run authorities and pro-Palestine protesters have suggested that over 35,000 civilians have been killed. Still, the United Nations last week adjusted the number of dead children downwards and halved it to 7,797.
The Hamas-run health ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but according to U.N. estimates, 40 percent of the 35 thousand “civilian deaths” are men.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in recent days that about 30,000 Palestinians were killed, including 14,000 Hamas fighters.
Netanyahu said that he regretted the 16,000 civilian deaths but added that Hamas held many as human shields.
The group also built tunnels near or beneath civilian sites such as hospitals, increasing the civilian death toll.
He said, however, that while for Hamas, “every death is a strategy,” for Israel, “every death is a tragedy.”
Yet he suggested that a tragic death toll of 16,000 civilians over seven months amid urban warfare in a densely populated area of some 2.5 million people is not “genocide.”
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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