Maersk halts stops in Israel's Haifa due to Iran-Israel conflict
Maersk said in a statement that it made the decision "after carefully analyzing threat risk reports regarding the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran -- particularly the potential risks of calling Israeli ports and their implications for the safety of our crews."
AFP
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Nahar Net
2 hours ago
- Nahar Net
What to expect and what not to at UN meeting on Israel-Palestine two-state solution
by Naharnet Newsdesk 28 July 2025, 14:16 The U.N. General Assembly is bringing high-level officials together this week to promote a two-state solution to the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict that would place their peoples side by side, living in peace in independent nations. Israel and its close ally the United States are boycotting the two-day meeting, which starts Monday and will be co-chaired by the foreign ministers of France and Saudi Arabia. Israel's right-wing government opposes a two-state solution, and the United States has called the meeting "counterproductive" to its efforts to end the war in Gaza. France and Saudi Arabia want the meeting to put a spotlight on the two-state solution, which they view as the only viable road map to peace, and to start addressing the steps to get there. The meeting was postponed from late June and downgraded from a four-day meeting of world leaders amid surging tensions in the Middle East, including Israel's 12-day war against Iran and the war in Gaza. "It was absolutely necessary to restart a political process, the two-state solution process, that is today threatened, more threatened than it has ever been," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation." Here's what's useful to know about the upcoming gathering. Why a two-state solution? The idea of dividing the Holy Land goes back decades. When the British mandate over Palestine ended, the U.N. partition plan in 1947 envisioned dividing the territory into Jewish and Arab states. Israel accepted the plan, but upon Israel's declaration of independence the following year, its Arab neighbors declared war and the plan was never implemented. Under a 1949 armistice, Jordan held control over the West Bank and east Jerusalem and Egypt over Gaza. Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those lands for a future independent state alongside Israel, and this idea of a two-state solution based on Israel's pre-1967 boundaries has been the basis of peace talks dating back to the 1990s. The two-state solution has wide international support. The logic behind it is that the populations of Israel, east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza are divided equally between Jews and Palestinians. The establishment of an independent Palestine would leave Israel as a democratic country with a solid Jewish majority and grant the Palestinians their dream of self-determination. Why hold a conference now? France and Saudi Arabia have said they want to put a spotlight on the two-state solution as the only viable path to peace in the Middle East — and they want to see a road map with specific steps, first ending the war in Gaza. The co-chairs said in a document sent to U.N. members in May that the primary goal of the meeting is to identify actions by "all relevant actors" to implement the two-state solution — and "to urgently mobilize the necessary efforts and resources to achieve this aim, through concrete and time-bound commitments." Saudi diplomat Manal Radwan, who led the country's delegation to the preparatory conference, said the meeting must "chart a course for action, not reflection." It must be "anchored in a credible and irreversible political plan that addresses the root cause of the conflict and offers a real path to peace, dignity and mutual security," she said. French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed for a broader movement toward a two-state solution in parallel with a recognition of Israel's right to defend itself. He announced late Thursday that France will recognize the state of Palestine officially at the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in late September. About 145 countries have recognized the state of Palestine. But Macron's announcement, ahead of Monday's meeting and amid increasing global anger over desperately hungry people in Gaza starting to die from starvation, makes France the most important Western power to do so. What is Israel's view? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the two-state solution on both nationalistic and security grounds. Netanyahu's religious and nationalist base views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people, while Israeli Jews overwhelmingly consider Jerusalem their eternal capital. The city's eastern side is home to Judaism's holiest site, along with major Christian and Muslim holy places. Hard-line Israelis like Netanyahu believe the Palestinians don't want peace, citing the second Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, and more recently the Hamas takeover of Gaza two years after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005. The Hamas takeover led to five wars, including the current and ongoing 21-month conflict. At the same time, Israel also opposes a one-state solution in which Jews could lose their majority. Netanyahu's preference seems to be the status quo, where Israel maintains overall control and Israelis have fuller rights than Palestinians, Israel deepens its control by expanding settlements, and the Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in pockets of the West Bank. Netanyahu condemned Macron's announcement of Palestinian recognition, saying it "rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy, just as Gaza became." What is the Palestinian view? The Palestinians, who label the current arrangement "apartheid," accuse Israel of undermining repeated peace initiatives by deepening settlement construction in the West Bank and threatening annexation. That would harm the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state and their prospects for independence. Ahmed Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and close associate of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the meeting will serve as preparation for a presidential summit expected in September. It will take place either in France or at the U.N. on the sidelines of the high-level meeting, U.N. diplomats said. Majdalani said the Palestinians have several goals, first a "serious international political process leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state." The Palestinians also want additional international recognition of their state by major countries including Britain. But expect that to happen in September, not at Monday's meeting, Majdalani said. And he said they want economic and financial support for the Palestinian Authority and international support for the reconstruction and recovery of the Gaza Strip. What will happen — and won't happen — at the meeting? All 193 U.N. member nations have been invited to attend the meeting and a French diplomat said about 40 ministers are expected. The United States and Israel are the only countries who are boycotting. The co-chairs have circulated an outcome document which could be adopted, and there could be some announcements of intentions to recognize a Palestinian state. But with Israel and the United States boycotting, there is no prospect of a breakthrough and the resumption of long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on an end to their conflict. Secretary-General António Guterres urged participants after the meeting was announced "to keep the two-state solution alive." And he said the international community must not only support a solution where independent states of Palestine and Israel live side-by-side in peace but "materialize the conditions to make it happen."
LBCI
4 hours ago
- LBCI
UN says Iran executions surge 'deeply disturbing'
The United Nations on Monday urged Iran to stop using the death penalty, citing a "worrying surge in executions" that has seen at least 612 people killed so far this year. "Reports that there have been several hundred executions in Iran so far this year underscore how deeply disturbing the situation has become and the urgent need for an immediate moratorium in the country on the use of the death penalty," said a statement from U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk. AFP
L'Orient-Le Jour
4 hours ago
- L'Orient-Le Jour
UN to use Israel's pause to try to reach Gaza's starving
The United Nations said it would try to reach as many starving people as possible in Gaza after Israel announced it would establish secure land routes for humanitarian convoys. The U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP) said it had enough food in, or on its way to, the region to feed the 2.1 million people in the Gaza Strip for almost three months. U.N. emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher said the United Nations would try to reach "as many starving people as we can" in the time window. Israel on Sunday began a limited "tactical pause" in military operations to allow the U.N. and aid agencies to tackle the deepening hunger crisis. "We welcome Israel's decision to support a one-week scale-up of aid, including lifting customs barriers on food, medicine and fuel from Egypt and the reported designation of secure routes for U.N. humanitarian convoys," Fletcher said in a statement. Fletcher said some movement restrictions appeared to have been eased on Sunday, citing initial reports indicating that over 100 truckloads of aid were collected. "But we need sustained action, and fast, including quicker clearances for convoys going to the crossing and dispatching into Gaza; multiple trips per day to the crossings so we and our partners can pick up the cargo; safe routes that avoid crowded areas; and no more attacks on people gathering for food." The U.N. aid chief said the world was calling out for life-saving humanitarian assistance to get through – but stressed that "vast amounts of aid are needed to stave off famine and a catastrophic health crisis." "Ultimately, of course, we don't just need a pause – we need a permanent cease-fire," he added. No shootings near convoys pledge WFP said the pauses and corridors should allow emergency food to be safely delivered. "Food aid is the only real way for most people inside Gaza to eat," it said in a statement. It said a third of the population had not been eating for days, and 470,000 people in Gaza "are enduring famine-like conditions" that were leading to deaths. WFP said more than 62,000 tons of food assistance were needed monthly to cover the entire Gaza population of two million. The agency noted that, on top of Sunday's "pause" announcement, Israel had pledged to allow more trucks to enter Gaza with quicker clearances along with "assurances of no armed forces or shootings near convoys." "Together, we hope these measures will allow for a surge in urgently needed food assistance to reach hungry people without further delays," it said. 'Dystopian landscape' U.N. rights chief Volker Turk said Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, was obliged to ensure sufficient food was provided to the population. "Children are starving and dying in front of our eyes. Gaza is a dystopian landscape of deadly attacks and total destruction," he said in a statement. He criticised a U.S.- and Israel-backed outfit, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), that in late May began distributing foodstuffs when U.N.-organised efforts were blocked. Turk said the GHF's "chaotic, militarised distribution sites were "failing utterly to deliver humanitarian aid at the scope and scale needed." His office says Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid in Gaza since the GHF started operations – nearly three-quarters of them in the vicinity of GHF sites.
