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Thousands take to streets in Gaza in rare public display of discontent with Hamas
Several thousand people briefly took to the streets across the Gaza Strip on Sunday to protest chronic power outages and difficult living conditions, providing a rare public show of discontent with the territory's Hamas government. Hamas security forces quickly dispersed the gatherings.
Marches took place in Gaza City, the southern town of Khan Younis and other locations, chanting "what a shame" and in one place burning Hamas flags, before police moved in and broke up the protests.
Police destroyed mobile phones of people who were filming in Khan Younis, and witnesses said there were several arrests. Dozens of young supporters and opponents of Hamas briefly faced off, throwing stones at one another.
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The demonstrations were organized by a grassroots online movement called "alvirus alsakher," or "the mocking virus." It was not immediately known who is behind the movement.
Hamas rules Gaza with an iron fist, barring most demonstrations and quickly stamping out public displays of dissent.
The Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007 from the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a crippling blockade on the territory. Israel says the closure is needed to prevent Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, from building up its military capabilities.
The closure has devastated Gaza's economy, sent unemployment skyrocketing and led to frequent power outages. During the current heat wave, people have been receiving four to six hours of power a day due to heavy demand.
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"Where is the electricity and where is the gas?" the crowds shouted in Khan Younis. "What a shame. What a shame."
Protesters also criticized Hamas for deducting a roughly $15 fee from monthly $100 stipends given to Gaza's poorest families by the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar.
There was no immediate comment from the Hamas authorities.
31 killed as Israel-Palestine fighting continues, Egypt pushes truce
Israeli military fire killed Palestinian teen in occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials say
Israeli military fire killed a 14-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said Thursday, as an extremist Israeli Cabinet minister visited a sensitive Jerusalem mosque that has been a frequent flashpoint for violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
Itamar Ben-Gvir's visit to the disputed hilltop compound comes as Israel and the Palestinians are locked in a year-and-a-half long bout of fighting and could enflame already surging tensions. It was also likely to draw condemnation from Palestinians who view such visits as provocative. The site is revered by Jews and Muslims, and the competing claims lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Also read: Israeli military kills 3 alleged Palestinian gunmen in volatile West Bank
Early Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said 14-year-old Fares Sharhabil Abu Samra was killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank town of Qalqilya. The Israeli military said Palestinians threw rocks and firebombs at troops, who responded by firing into the air. It said the incident was being reviewed.
Ben-Gvir was joining what will likely to be hundreds of Jews visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to mark the Jewish holiday of Tisha B'Av, a day of mourning and repentance when Jews reflect on the destruction of the First and Second Temples, key events in Jewish history.
"This is the most important place for the people of Israel which we must return to and show our rule," Ben-Gvir said in a video released by his office, with the golden Dome of the Rock in the background.
Also read: Israeli forces kill 2 wanted Palestinians in shootout in the occupied West Bank
Ben-Gvir, a former West Bank settler leader and far-right activist who years ago was convicted of incitement and supporting a Jewish terror group, now serves as Israel's national security minister, overseeing the country's police force.
Thursday was Ben-Gvir's third known visit to the contested site since becoming a minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government. The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, is the holiest site in Judaism, where the biblical Temples once stood. Today, it is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.
His visit could enflame already surging tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, who have been engaged in a monthslong round of fighting that has sparked the worst violence in nearly two decades in the West Bank.
Also read: Israel launches most intense military operation in West Bank in years; at least 8 Palestinians dead
Since early last year, Israel has been staging near-nightly raids into Palestinian areas which it says are meant to stamp out militancy and thwart future attacks. More than 160 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
The military says most of those killed have been fighters. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed. At least 26 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis since the start of 2023.
Under longstanding arrangements, Jews are permitted to visit the site, but not to pray there. But in recent years, a growing number of Jewish visitors have begun to quietly pray, raising fears among Palestinians that Israel is plotting to divide or take over the site. Ben-Gvir has long called for increased Jewish access.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, where the compound lies, along with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state, with east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move unrecognized by most of the international community and considers the city its undivided, permanent capital.
Netanyahu's government, consisting of ultranationalists and West Bank settlement supporters like Ben-Gvir, has intensified steps to solidify Israel's hold on territories that Palestinians seek for a future state, angering Israel's top ally, the United States, and dimming hopes for Palestinian statehood.
Israeli military kills 3 alleged Palestinian gunmen in volatile West Bank
The Israeli military said it shot and killed three alleged Palestinian gunmen in the northern occupied West Bank on Tuesday, the latest bloodshed in one of the most violent stretches of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in years.
Israeli security forces said they opened fire at Palestinian militants who had shot at them from a car in the West Bank city of Nablus, the territory’s commercial capital and a major focus of the Israeli military’s recently stepped-up raids. In the hilly neighborhood of al-Tur shortly after the shooting, Israeli forces inspected a shattered black Skoda surrounded by spent bullet casings.
Palestinian media described the Israeli killing of the gunmen as an ambush following the militants’ attempted attack on Israeli forces near a Jewish settlement overlooking Nablus. The Israeli military said it confiscated three M-16 rifles and other equipment from their car.
Read: Palestinian gunman opens fire on a car in the occupied West Bank wounding 3, including 2 girls
Israeli-Palestinian fighting has surged in the territory, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians seek the occupied West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, for a hoped-for future state.
In recent months, the West Bank has witnessed a volatile mix of the rise of local armed Palestinian groups carrying out frequent shooting attacks against Israelis and near-daily Israeli military raids that have increasingly turned deadly. Earlier this month, Israel’s most forceful incursion into the West Bank in nearly two decades killed 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier.
Heightening tensions, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right, ultranationalist coalition has rejected talks with the Palestinian leadership, sought to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank and pushed for a more aggressive response to Palestinian militant attacks.
Read: Israeli forces kill 2 wanted Palestinians in shootout in the occupied West Bank
Late Monday, Palestinian militants said they opened fire at a bus carrying Israeli settlers near the Palestinian town of Hawara, just south of Nablus, without causing casualties. The Israeli military said it was setting up checkpoints to search for the suspects. A little-known armed group from the area calling itself the “Dawn Brigade” claimed responsibility for the shooting.
So far this year, over 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank – the highest death toll in over a decade. Nearly half of them were affiliated with militant groups and killed in fighting during Israeli military raids, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions as well as innocent bystanders have also been killed.
Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 25 people this year.
Fierce protests have been rocking Israel for months. What's fueling them?
Oceans of Israeli flags, steady drumbeats, cries of "Democracy!" Water cannons, police on horseback, protesters dragged off the ground.
For seven straight months, tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in the most sustained and intense demonstrations the country has ever seen.
The protesters are part of a grassroots movement that rose out of opposition to a contentious judicial overhaul spearheaded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies.
The overhaul calls for sweeping changes aimed at curbing the powers of the judiciary, from limiting the Supreme Court's ability to challenge parliamentary decisions, to changing the way judges are selected.
While the government says the overhaul is needed to reduce the powers of unelected judges, protesters, who make up a wide cross section of Israeli society, say the overhaul will push Israel toward autocracy.
With a key portion of the overhaul nearing a final vote early next week, protesters are vowing further "days of disruption" and calling for strikes and general unrest.
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Here's a look at why they are still protesting, months into the government's efforts:
WHAT'S IN THE OVERHAUL?
Netanyahu's ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox religious allies say the package is meant to restore power to elected officials. Critics say it is a power grab fueled by various personal and political grievances by Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, and his partners, who want to deepen Israel's control of the occupied West Bank and perpetuate controversial draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men.
The proposals include a bill that would allow a simple majority in parliament to overturn Supreme Court decisions. Another would give parliament the final say in selecting judges.
On Monday, parliament is expected to vote on a key bill that would prevent the Supreme Court from striking down government decisions on the basis that they are "unreasonable."
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Proponents say the current "reasonability" standard gives judges excessive powers over decision making by elected officials. But critics say that removing the standard, which is invoked only in rare cases, would allow the government to pass arbitrary decisions, make improper appointments or firings and open the door to corruption.
Protesters say Netanyahu and his allies want to change the law so they can appoint cronies to government posts — and particularly so that they can fire the country's independent attorney general, according to Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank. Supporters see Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara as a bulwark against the overhaul.
The measures "make it more difficult to conduct oversight" over arbitrary decisions of elected officials, said Yohanan Plesner, the institute's president. "This is one chapter of a broader plan and program of the government to weaken the checks and balances."
In a speech Thursday, Netanyahu dismissed accusations that the plan would destroy Israel's democratic foundations as absurd. "This is an attempt to mislead you over something that has no basis in reality," he said.
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WHY ARE THERE STILL PROTESTS?
Netanyahu's government took office in December and almost immediately unveiled its plans to weaken Israel's Supreme Court.
Protests sprang up in major cities, business leaders balked at the plan and, perhaps most critically, military reservists in Israel's air force and other key units threatened to stop reporting for duty if it passed.
The protests prompted Netanyahu to pause the overhaul in March and enter talks with opposition lawmakers. After talks broke down last month, Netanyahu announced in June the overhaul would move forward.
Protesters accuse Netanyahu of changing tactics, but not his broader goals, by moving forward in a slower and more measured way in a bid to lull the protesters and dull their opposition.
"The government got smarter," said Josh Drill, a spokesman for the protest movement. "They saw the fallout of trying to ram the overhaul through, and they decided instead to do it piece by piece."
Protests have intensified as the coalition's efforts to make the overhaul into law have moved forward.
On Tuesday, protesters crippled the city's main highway and blocked train stations, and thousands of people marched nearly 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem over the weekend ahead of Monday's vote.
WHY ARE PROTESTERS SO DETERMINED TO PROTECT THE JUDICIARY?
With a relatively weak system of checks and balances, the judiciary plays a large role in checking executive power in Israel.
In the U.S. for example, Congress has two houses that operate independently of the president and can limit his power. But in Israel, the prime minister and his majority coalition in parliament work in tandem.
That leaves the judiciary as "the only check on governmental power," according to constitutional law professor Amichai Cohen.
Israel also has minimal local governance and lacks a formal constitution. This means that most of the power is centralized in parliament, Cohen said. The "basic laws" — foundational laws that experts describe as a sort of informal constitution — can be changed at any time by a bare majority.
With the overhaul, Cohen said, the Israeli parliament now threatens to further consolidate its power by weakening the judiciary.
"The government can do whatever it wants, because it controls the ability to change even the basic laws," Cohen said.
Historically, the Israeli judiciary has played a role in protecting the rights of minorities, from Palestinian citizens of Israel to noncitizens and African asylum seekers, Cohen said.
By weakening the judiciary, critics say, Israel's government — led by a male-dominated coalition whose members have advocated full annexation of the occupied West Bank, discriminating against LGBTQ+ people and Palestinian citizens of Israel, and limiting the rights of women — will be granted near-total control.
"It will be a hollow democracy," said Fuchs.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Over the weekend, Israeli media reported that the country's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, alarmed by the growing refusals to serve in the military, was pushing for a delay in Monday's vote. It was unclear if others would join him.
If the "reasonability" bill is passed, it will mark the first major part of the legislation to become law.
Fuchs predicted the law would be appealed to the Supreme Court. If the court strikes it down, Netanyahu's coalition will have to decide whether to accept the ruling. That could set the stage for a "constitutional crisis."
In the meantime, the protests that have rocked the country for seven months will likely grow in intensity.
Israeli PM Netanyahu discharged from hospital
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was discharged on Sunday after an overnight hospital stay for check-ups and monitoring following a dizzy spell.
Netanyahu, 73, was rushed to Sheba Medical Center on Saturday after feeling mild dizziness. His office said he had left the hospital around midday after stating earlier that his test results were normal and that he was feeling “very good.”
The medical center said Netanyahu was in “excellent” condition after a series of tests, including cardiovascular ones.
Read: Israeli forces kill 2 wanted Palestinians in shootout in the occupied West Bank
Netanyahu's office said he had spent the previous day at the Sea of Galilee, a popular vacation spot in northern Israel where temperatures climbed to about 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) amid a stifling country-wide heat wave. After a series of tests, the initial assessment was that the veteran Israeli leader was dehydrated.
After being hospitalized, Netanyahu released a video on social media last night. Smiling, he said that he had been out in the sun on Friday without wearing a hat and without water. “Not a good idea,” he said.
Doctors ordered him to remain in the hospital overnight for further observation, and his weekly Cabinet meeting was delayed by a day and rescheduled for Monday, his office said.
Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving leader. He has served multiple terms stretching over 15 years in office. His current far-right government, a collection of religious and ultranationalist parties, took office last December.
Read: Israel launches most intense military operation in West Bank in years; at least 8 Palestinians dead
Netanyahu is said to be in generally good health, though he was briefly hospitalized last October after feeling unwell during prayers on Yom Kippur, a day when observant Jews fast.
The Israeli leader faces pressure on multiple fronts.
He is on trial for multiple corruption charges in a case that has bitterly divided the nation. His government's hard-line policies toward Palestinians have drawn international criticism and antagonized relations with the United States, Israel's closest and most important ally.
Read: Israel's Netanyahu appoints new media advisor, journalist who had called Biden 'unfit,' report says
At home, tens of thousands of Israelis have held weekly demonstrations against Netanyahu's government to protest his plan to overhaul the country's judiciary.
Netanyahu's allies say the plan is needed to rein in the power of unelected judges. But his opponents say the plan will destroy the country's fragile system of checks and balances and concentrate power in the hands of Netanyahu and his allies.
Palestinian gunman opens fire on a car in the occupied West Bank wounding 3, including 2 girls
A Palestinian gunman opened fire on a car in the occupied West Bank on Sunday wounding three Israelis, including two girls, before fleeing, Israeli authorities said.
The bloodshed was the latest in a relentless cycle of violence that has gripped the region, driving up the death toll and sparking the worst fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank in nearly two decades.
The Israeli military said the gunman opened fire on a car from a passing vehicle. Israel's rescue service MDA said three Israelis were wounded, including a 35-year-old with gunshot wounds in serious but stable condition. Two girls, aged 9 and 14, were lightly wounded by flying debris.
Israeli forces kill 2 wanted Palestinians in shootout in the occupied West Bank
The military said forces were on the lookout for the assailant.
Fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank intensified early last year when Israel launched near-nightly raids into Palestinian areas in the West Bank in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
The violence has spiked this year, with more than 150 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since the start of 2023 in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Israeli says most of those killed have been militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting the raids and others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
At least 26 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that time.
Israel launches most intense military operation in West Bank in years; at least 8 Palestinians dead
Israel says the raids are essential to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians see the violence as a natural response to 56 years of occupation, including stepped-up settlement construction by Israel's government and increased violence by Jewish settlers.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.
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Israeli PM Netanyahu hospitalised
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday was rushed to a hospital, where he was assessed to be in “good condition” as he underwent a medical evaluation, his office said. Initial tests determined the Israeli leader was suffering from dehydration.
Read: Israeli forces kill 2 wanted Palestinians in shootout in the occupied West Bank
A statement from Netanyahu’s office said that he had spent Friday enjoying Israel’s Sea of Galilee at a time of high summer temperatures. It said he felt dizzy and his doctor instructed him to go to Sheba Hospital, near the coastal city of Tel Aviv.
Read: Israel presses on with hunt for West Bank militants. The death toll rises to 10 and civilians flee
The statement said initial tests found everything to be sound, and that it appeared Netanyahu was suffering from dehydration. It said doctors had ordered further tests.
Israeli forces kill 2 wanted Palestinians in shootout in the occupied West Bank
Israeli forces killed two wanted Palestinians in a flashpoint city in the occupied West Bank Friday, days after Israel concluded a major two-day offensive meant to crack down on militants.
The persistent violence raised questions about the effectiveness of the raid earlier this week, which saw Israel launch rare airstrikes on militant targets, deploy hundreds of troops and cause widespread damage to roads, homes and businesses. As a result of the raid, 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed.
The raid bore the hallmarks of the second Palestinian uprising, a period of violence in the early 2000s that killed thousands.
The Israeli domestic security agency Shin Bet said Friday the two men, who it said were behind a shooting attack this week on a police vehicle, were killed in a gun battle with Israeli forces in the heart of the city of Nablus, the West Bank's commercial capital.
Read: 31 killed as Israel-Palestine fighting continues, Egypt pushes truce
The Palestinian Health Ministry said two men were killed by Israeli fire, identifying them as Khayri Mohammed Sari Shaheen, 34, and Hamza Moayed Mohammed Maqbool, 32.
In the aftermath of the shootout, bullet casings littered the blood-stained ground. Palestinians carried the bodies of the men killed into the hospital, chanting “God is great!” as guns fired into the air.
Friday's deaths are part of a year-long spiral violence that shows no signs of abating, despite the fierce Israeli operation this week in the Jenin refugee camp. They follow a shooting on Thursday by a Hamas militant near an Israeli West Bank settlement that killed an Israeli soldier.
Israel has been staging raids in the West Bank for 16 months, in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis last spring. The northern West Bank, which includes Nablus and Jenin and where the Palestinian Authority has less of a foothold, has been a major friction point during that period.
Read: Israel-Palestine conflict: China calls for UN council action, slams US
Over 150 Palestinians have been killed this year in the West Bank, and Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 27 people, including a shooting last month that killed four settlers.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.
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A troubled new power plant leaves Jordan in debt to China, raising concerns over Beijing's influence
Jordan's Attarat power plant was envisioned as a landmark project promising to provide the desert kingdom with a major source of energy while solidifying its relations with China.
But weeks after its official opening, the site, a sea of black, crumbly rock in the barren desert south of Jordan's capital, is instead a source of heated controversy. Deals surrounding the plant put Jordan on the hook for billions of dollars in debt to China — all for a plant that is no longer needed for its energy, because of other agreements made since the project's conception.
The result is fueling tensions between China and Jordan and causing grief for the Jordanian government as it tries to contest the deal in an international legal battle. As Chinese influence grows in the Middle East and America withdraws, the $2.1 billion shale oil station has come to characterize China's wider model that has burdened many Asian and African states with crippling debt and served as a cautionary tale for the region.
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"Attarat is a representation of what the Belt and Road Initiative was and has become," said Jesse Marks, a nonresident fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center, referring to China's scheme to build global infrastructure and boost Beijing's political sway.
"Jordan evolves as an interesting case study not for China's success in the region but for how China engages in middle-income countries," he said.
First conceived some 15 years ago as a way to fulfill national ambitions of energy independence, the Attarat shale oil plant is now causing anger in Jordan because of its enormous price tag. If the original agreement holds, Jordan would have to pay China a staggering $8.4 billion over 30 years to buy the electricity generated by the plant.
Laborers flown from rural China toil in the shadow of the giant station, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Amman.
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When Shi Changqing arrived in the Jordanian desert earlier this year from the Jilin province in China's northeast, fears were mounting in the workers' dormitories that the project could grind to a halt, leaving everyone in the lurch, the 36-year-old welder said.
"It's very strange to feel that, being from China, you are not wanted here," he said.
With its meager natural resources in a region awash with oil and gas, Jordan seemed to have drawn a losing ticket. Then in the 2000s, it struck shale oil trapped in the black rock that underlies the country. With the fourth-largest concentration of shale oil in the world, Jordan had high hopes for a big pay-off.
In 2012, the Jordanian Attarat Power Company proposed to the government to extract shale oil from the desert and build a plant using it to provide 15% of the country's electricity supply. The proposal fit the government's intensifying desire for energy self-sufficiency amid the turmoil of the 2011 Arab uprisings, company officials say.
Also read: AP analysis says China's loans ‘pushing some poor countries to brink of collapse’
But extraction proved expensive, risky and technologically challenging. As the project lagged, Jordan struck a $15 billion agreement to import vast amounts of natural gas at competitive prices from Israel in 2014. Interest in Attarat waned.
Attarat Power Co. board member Mohammed Maaitah said he pitched the project the world over — from the United States and Europe to Japan and South Korea. No one bit, he said.
To Jordan's surprise, Chinese banks offered Jordan over $1.6 billion in loans to finance the plant in 2017. A Chinese state-owned firm, Guangdong Energy Group, bought a 45% stake in the Attarat Power Co., turning the white elephant into the largest private enterprise to come out of President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative outside China, according to the company.
Guangdong Energy Group did not respond to requests for comment.
The investment was part of China's wider push into an Arab world hungry for foreign investment, experts say. The money for large infrastructure projects came with few political strings attached.
"China doesn't bring with it the baggage of the United States in that we actually have some concern about democratic processes, transparency, corruption," said David Schenker, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Middle East policy. "For authoritarian states, there's some appeal in China."
As talk grew of American unreliability, China turned to acquiring strategic assets in the Middle East, even in economically troubled states. It bought lots of Iraqi oil, tendered a port in northern Lebanon and poured money into President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's new capital in Egypt.
With Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2017 gaining the upper hand in his country's civil war, China had an interest in investing in the Attarat project in neighboring Jordan as a springboard, anticipating a Syrian reconstruction boom that could unlock billions of dollars in investments, experts say.
Under their 30-year power purchase deal, Jordan's state-run electricity company will have to buy electricity from the now effectively Chinese-led Attarat at an exorbitant rate that means the Jordanian government would lose $280 million annually, the treasury estimated. To cover the payments, Jordan would have to raise electricity prices for consumers by 17%, energy experts said — a severe blow to an economy already saddled with debt and inflation.
The extent of losses to China appalled the Jordanian government. Jordan's Ministry of Energy launched international arbitration against Attarat Power Co. in 2020 "on the grounds of gross unfairness."
When asked why Jordan had agreed to such a lopsided contract to begin with, Jordan's Ministry of Energy declined to comment, as did the National Electricity Co. As of June, hearings were being held at an arbitration tribunal of the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce.
Musa Hantash, a geologist on the parliamentary energy committee, described the deal as the natural outcome of corruption and a lack of technical expertise.
"It's very difficult to convince these big companies to invest in Jordan. There are things to help certain people make a profit," he said, without elaborating.
American officials portrayed the Attarat contract as a case of Beijing's " debt trap diplomacy."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the Attarat project. But it defended Beijing's investment in developing countries, denying allegations it ensnares partners in debt and arguing that China never compels "others to borrow from us forcibly."
"We never attach any political strings to loan agreements," the ministry said, urging international financial institutions to help provide debt relief.
Attarat Power said it expects a decision in the case later this year. Rulings by the world business organization are legally binding and enforceable.
Maaitah and other company officials dismissed Jordan's claims of unjustly inflated prices, accusing Jordan of backtracking on its agreement due to anti-China sentiment.
Since the first of two power units went live last fall, the Jordanian government has paid only half its monthly dues, Maaitah said.
In Jordan and other poorer Arab states allied with the U.S., the pace of Chinese investment in recent years has slowed.
Faced with pushback abroad and rising concerns at home, China is shifting its approach in the region, said Amman-based China expert Samer Khraino, focusing on the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Wealthy states like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have no issue paying back China's big loans.
For now, Jordan appears unwilling to take any more chances with China.
In May, Jordan's telecommunications company Orange signed a new agreement for 5G equipment. It had long been a customer of Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant under American sanctions.
This time, it chose Nokia.
Israel presses on with hunt for West Bank militants. The death toll rises to 10 and civilians flee
Israeli troops pressed ahead with their hunt for Palestinian militants and weapons in a West Bank refugee camp Tuesday, after military bulldozers tore through alleys and thousands of residents fled to safety. The two-day Palestinian death toll rose to 10.
The large-scale raid of the Jenin camp, which began Monday, is one of the most intense military operations in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades. It bore hallmarks of Israeli military tactics during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s and came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces growing pressure from his ultranationalist political allies for a tough response to recent attacks on Israeli settlers, including a shooting last month that killed four people.
Read: Israel launches most intense military operation in West Bank in years; at least 8 Palestinians dead
On Tuesday morning, rubble littered the streets of Jenin and there were reports of damage to shops. Columns of black smoke periodically punctuated the skyline over the camp in the northern West Bank city, long a Palestinian militant stronghold.
Jenin Mayor Nidal Al-Obeidi said that around 4,000 Palestinians had fled the Jenin refugee camp, finding accommodation in the homes of relatives and in shelters. Residents said there was no water and electricity in the camp.
Across the West Bank, Palestinians observed a general strike to protest the Israeli raid.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Tuesday that the two-day death toll rose to 10, with two more deaths reported overnight. The Israeli military has claimed all were militants, but did not provide details.
A spokesman for the Israeli military, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Monday that Israel had launched the operation because some 50 attacks over the past year had emanated from Jenin.
The Jenin camp and an adjacent town of the same name have been a flashpoint since Israeli-Palestinian violence began escalating in spring 2022. It was also a hotbed of Palestinian military activity in the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s.
On Tuesday, hundreds of Israeli troops continued to operate in the camp, seizing weapons and explosives and destroying tunnels and command posts, the army said.
Israeli media reported that the army had arrested at least 120 suspected Palestinian militants since Monday.
Read: Israel deploys heavy police presence ahead of Jerusalem march
The Palestinian self-rule government in the West Bank and three Arab countries with normalized ties with Israel – Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – condemned Israel's incursion, as did the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
More than 140 Palestinians have been killed this year in the West Bank, part of more than a yearlong spike in violence that has seen some of the worst bloodshed in the area in nearly two decades. Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 26 people.
Israel says the raids are meant to crack down on Palestinians militants and thwart attacks. The Palestinians say such violence is inevitable in the absence of any political process with Israel and increased West Bank settlement construction and violence by extremist settlers.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and people uninvolved in confrontations have also died.
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Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.