Within 48 hours, Israeli settlers attack 40 Palestinian homes

Israeli settlers launched a series of attacks on 40 Palestinian homes in the northern West Bank, some of them using firearms.

A Palestinian official said Saturday that Israeli settlers attacked 40 Palestinian homes in the northern West Bank within 48 hours.

On Friday and Saturday, Israeli settlers launched a series of attacks, some of which used firearms, on Palestinian villages around the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, according to Palestinian sources and eyewitnesses.

The official in charge of the wall and settlement file in the northern West Bank, Ghassan Daghs, said that the settlers' attacks "concentrated in several villages in the Nablus governorate," according to his interview with Anadolu Agency.

He added, "The settlers attacked 25 houses in the town of Burqa (southwest of the city) and five others in the village of Sebastia (north of the city)."

DGS stated that "10 other houses were attacked by settlers in the village of Deir Sharaf (north of the city) and the villages of Qaryut, Qusra and Al Laban south of the city," noting that "the settlers used weapons, stones and sticks in their attacks."

There were no statistics available from official authorities on the number of injuries caused by settlers, but the most prominent of them was fractures and bruises in the face of the 65-year-old Palestinian Wael Moqbel in the village of Qaryut at dawn on Friday, according to Anadolu Agency.

On Saturday, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned in a statement against dragging the area into violence due to the continued attacks by armed Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages, blaming the Israeli government for responsibility.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Territories recorded 427 attacks against settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from January to November 2021.

Peace Now data indicates that there are about 666,000 settlers, 145 large settlements and 140 random outposts in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Round 7 of Iran nuclear negotiations concludes amid talk of 80% consensus

Senior diplomats from France, Germany and Britain said that "some progress has been made at the technical level in the last 24 hours" in talks they held in Vienna aimed at salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers.

Enrique Mora, the European coordinator for the Vienna talks, announced on Friday that an 80% consensus had been reached on the draft agreement between Iran and the major powers on Tehran's nuclear program.

Mora added, "We finished the round of negotiations and agreed to hold another round," noting that the new round "has not been set yet."

He pointed out that the goal of the upcoming negotiations is to "discuss a return to the nuclear agreement, not to reformulate it," according to the same source.

European negotiators with their counterparts from Iran, China and Russia concluded the seventh round of negotiations after several days of intense talks, and hope to hold the new round before the end of the year.

The diplomats stressed that all other partners were "ready to continue the talks" and called on the Iranians to "quickly resume" and accelerate them.

Commenting on the course of the talks, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said: "It's not going well in the sense that we haven't yet found a way back to the nuclear deal."

He continued, "We are paying the bills for the disastrous decision to leave the agreement in 2018," noting that the nuclear agreement put a ceiling on Iran's nuclear program.

But Sullivan, addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said talks had made "some progress" in recent days.

Russian envoy Mikhail Ulyanov said the talks were due to resume where they left off in June when Tehran requested a suspension due to the Iranian elections.

He added in a tweet that the latest round was "successful in the sense that it laid a good foundation for deeper negotiations."

However, a number of former US officials, including Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense under former US President Barack Obama, and retired General David Petraeus, urged Biden to launch major military exercises or other moves to intimidate Iran.

For his part, Tehran's chief negotiator Ali Bagheri said, "This round of talks included conveying the new government's views and positions," adding, "We now have two new drafts, the first on canceling the imposed embargo and the second on nuclear measures."

The Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, praised Friday to reporters an "important step."

But Grossi expressed "doubts" about the lack of data from one of the site's surveillance cameras.

Access to the sites for IAEA inspectors tasked with monitoring the peaceful nature of Iranian activities has been greatly reduced.

The UN agency, which complains of Tehran's lack of cooperation, reached an arrangement on Wednesday to replace the surveillance cameras at the Karaj nuclear site.

The main challenge to the negotiations lies in returning the United States to the agreement, as Washington participates indirectly, after its withdrawal in 2018 from the international nuclear agreement concluded in Vienna in 2015.

On November 29, the major powers resumed negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program with the aim of returning to the 2015 agreement, after a 5-month hiatus.

The Iranian ambassador to the Houthis leaves Sanaa with an evacuation plane What is the reason?

The Iranian ambassador to the Houthi group in Yemen leaves the capital, Sanaa, with a medical evacuation plane. While Yemeni media reported that Airlo was transferred via a medical evacuation plane, with the approval of the coalition forces, after his health condition suffered a "significant deterioration" after he was infected with the Corona virus.

On Saturday, the Iranian ambassador to the Houthi group in Yemen, Hassan Erlo, left the capital, Sanaa, with a medical evacuation plane, according to a shipping source.

The official source at Sanaa International Airport told Anadolu Agency that Airlo "left the airport via an Iraqi medical evacuation plane."

He added, preferring not to be named, that "the Iranian ambassador will be transferred to the Iraqi city of Basra," without details of his health condition or other information.

In turn, Yemeni media reported that Airlo was transferred via a medical evacuation plane, with the approval of the coalition forces, after his health condition "significantly deteriorated."

Until 14:15 GMT, there was no comment from the Houthis, Iran or the coalition on the matter.

And on Friday, the American newspaper, “The Wall Street Journal”, reported that Houthi leaders informed Saudi Arabia that Erlo needed to leave Sanaa to obtain better medical treatment after he was infected with the Corona virus.

It quoted (unnamed) regional officials as saying that Airlo "can only leave on a plane from Oman or Iraq, and he will not be allowed to leave unless the Houthis release some prominent Saudi hostages."

In a mysterious way, Erlo arrived in Sana'a in October 2020, after he was appointed as Iran's ambassador to the Houthis.

Iran is the first country to appoint an ambassador to the Houthi-controlled areas.

And in August 2019, the Houthi group (which is not internationally recognized) appointed its ambassador to Tehran, amid condemnation from the Yemeni government.

Yemen has been witnessing for nearly 7 years a continuous war between the pro-government forces backed by an Arab military alliance led by the neighboring Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian-backed Houthis, who have controlled several governorates, including Sanaa, since September 2014.

The occupation announces the arrest of 6 Palestinians, allegedly involved in the killing of a settler in the northern West Bank

Operation near Nablus

Today, Sunday, the Israeli occupation announced the arrest of the perpetrators of an armed attack that killed a settler and wounded two others near the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, three days ago.

According to the statement, the occupation army arrested 4 Palestinians from the village of Silat Al-Harithiya, west of Jenin, and that two of them carried out the attack on settlers near the settlement of Homesh last Thursday, while the other two people provided them with assistance.

A spokesman for the occupation army said that the weapon that was used in the attack, which killed a settler and wounded two others, was seized near the outpost of Homesh between Nablus and Jenin.

In turn, the official Hebrew-language Kan channel reported that an occupation force arrested 6 Palestinians last night for their involvement in the aforementioned attack.

She added that the six Palestinians were arrested in the village of Silat Al-Harithiya without resistance or shooting.

For their part, eyewitnesses reported that the occupation forces surrounded 3 buildings in the village of Silat al-Harithiya after midnight last night and arrested 6 citizens, including two brothers and their uncle, and that among them were liberated prisoners belonging to the Islamic Jihad movement.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) reported the names of the six detainees, who are Muhammad Youssef Jaradat, Mahmoud Ghaleb Jaradat, and the two brothers Omar and Ghaith Ahmed Muhammad Yassin Jaradat, Taher Suleiman Abu Salah and Ibrahim Musa Tahaineh.

She added that the occupation forces raided the homes of detainees and tampered with their contents and wreaked havoc and destruction there.

The occupation authorities evacuated the settlement of Homesh, which was built on the lands of the town of Burqa, Wassila al-Dhahr, in 2005, but settlers still visit it from time to time.