Hamas…Iran and Qatar…
The war in the Middle East has left Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, balancing two key allies, Iran and Qatar, that are on different sides of the regional conflagration.
The United States and Israel have been waging a huge air assault against Iran, which has responded by firing missiles and drones at Israel and at Persian Gulf nations, including Qatar.
The crossfire presents a problem for Hamas: While it has repeatedly expressed its solidarity with Iran in its battle with Israel and the United States, it has subtly tried to convey to Qatar that it cares about its interests, too.
“Hamas is walking on the knife’s edge,” said Iyad al-Qarra, a Palestinian analyst sympathetic to the militant group. “Between Iran and Qatar, it’s in a very difficult position.”
Hamas is part of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, the network of militias that the Iranian government has cultivated in the Middle East. Hamas officials have described Iran as the biggest foreign backer of its military wing, a source of vast funding, equipment and training.
Hamas also has strong ties with Qatar, which has hosted its senior officials for years and provided hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza — with Israeli approval — for poor families, infrastructure projects and public-sector employees’ salaries. Israeli officials have more recently said they regret the decision to allow Qatari money into Gaza, since it enabled Hamas to divert funds to military operations….
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“There are two currents in Hamas: one close to Iran, which is stronger, and another close to Arab states, which is weaker,” said Esmat Mansour, a Palestinian political analyst who spent years in Israeli prisons with senior Hamas leaders. “We can see both of these currents manifesting in Hamas’s statements since the beginning of the war.”….
Lebanon….Israel targeting Lebanon Medical staff?
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Lebanese healthcare workers and officials say Israeli bombings have deliberately targeted medical workers and facilities in south Lebanon, including through the use of double-tap strikes, in what they describe as a systematic effort to make the area unlivable.
Since the war began on 2 March, Israel has struck at least 128 medical facilities and ambulances across south Lebanon, killing 40 healthcare workers and wounding 107, according to the Lebanese ministry of health. The war started when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel, triggering an Israeli military campaign.
Most of the strikes on medics happened while they were sitting in ambulances or at first aid centres, several of which have been destroyed in south Lebanon. Israel has also carried out at least five double-tap strikes, a tactic in which an initial strike is followed by a pause, allowing medical workers to arrive before the area is bombed for a second time.
Medical workers and hospitals are protected under international law and deliberately targeting them could constitute a war crime. Amnesty International said on Thursday that, regardless of political affiliation, medical workers are considered civilians and targeting them is unlawful….
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Rafah opening…Hunting Hamas…
Israel reopened the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Thursday, allowing a group of Palestinians wounded in the Israel-Hamas war to leave for treatment after a nearly three-week closure due to the war with Iran.
Israel had shuttered the Rafah crossing following the start of Iran war on February 28, saying crossings could not be operated safely.
The reopening came as Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency reported four people killed and several wounded in separate Israeli strikes on Gaza City’s Zeitoun and Tuffah neighborhoods on Wednesday. Asked by AFP about the two incidents, the Israel Defense Forces said it was looking into the reports….
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Sources told Reuters earlier that the opening of the Rafah crossing on Thursday was the result of talks that envoys from the US-backed Board of Peace had with Hamas officials in Cairo over the weekend in an effort to safeguard the Gaza ceasefire, which has been under serious strain amid the war with Iran. The board, chaired by US President Donald Trump, is meant to oversee the ceasefire’s implementation…
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An Israeli strike in Khan Younis on Wednesday killed Muhammed Abu Shahla, the intelligence officer of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, the IDF said Thursday. Al-Quds Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, confirmed his death in a “martyr” poster….
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The IDF also said it struck and killed four armed Palestinian terror operatives in the northern Gaza Strip. The military said the gunmen had crossed the Yellow Line and posed an “immediate threat” to the forces.
The IDF said it struck and “eliminated the terrorists to remove the threat.”….
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Trump arming Middle East countries ignoring Congress signing the checks….
The Trump administration has declared a wartime emergency to bypass Congress and push through more than $23 billion in weapons sales to allies in the Middle East, the second time since the start of the war with Iran that it has circumvented the normal congressional approval process.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that “an emergency exists requiring the immediate approval of critical arms transfers for Middle East partners currently under attack by Iran,” the State Department said in a statement on Thursday.
The Trump administration first declared an emergency soon after the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, in order to bypass Congress on the sale of more than 20,000 bombs to Israel. The Biden administration had also twice used an emergency declaration to sell weapons to Israel, for use during the Gaza war.
Such a declaration, while permitted under the Arms Export Control Act, is used by the White House and State Department only on rare occasions to sidestep the House and Senate committees that review and approve arms transfers. Mr. Rubio’s skirting of that congressional review process twice in less than two weeks is the latest move by the Trump administration to sidestep congressional oversight of the war.
The new proposed sale to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan encompasses 11 arms orders, according to the State Department. Some of the proposed sales had been under informal review by lawmakers, at least one of whom had yet to sign off. But the administration had not sent Capitol Hill even preliminary notice for a majority of the arms transfers it announced on Thursday, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive arms transactions.
Asked for comment, Representative Brian Mast, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Mr. Rubio had “wisely” decided to declare an emergency and go around Congress after the top Democrat on his panel, Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, had refused to approve some of the proposed exports.
“He alone is holding up sales of needed weapons to Israel, U.A.E. and others,” Mr. Mast said of his Democratic counterpart….
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