Middle-East
22,000 arrested in Iran protests pardoned
The head of Iran's judiciary says 22,000 people arrested in the recent protests that swept the Islamic Republic have been pardoned.
The state-run IRNA news agency quoted Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi on Monday as announcing the figure. The Associated Press could not independently verify the statement.
State media previously suggested Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could pardon that many swept up in the demonstrations ahead of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.
The protests began in September over the death of a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the country's morality police.
After UAE, Saudi Arabia now considering 3-day weekend
Saudi Arabia is mulling a three-day weekend after the UAE enacted it last year.
According to Saudi local media, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development responded to a tweet by saying that it is evaluating the present work arrangement to extend the weekend to three days, reports Khaleej Times.
The message, according to sources, emerged on the ministry’s Twitter account, which is meant to respond to inquiries from its recipients, it said.
Read More: China’s Xi wants bigger global role after facilitating Saudi-Iran deal
According to the tweet, the ministry is conducting a periodic evaluation of the present work system in Saudi Arabia to enhance job creation and make the market more appealing to local and foreign investors. It further stated that a draft of the work system had been posted on a survey platform for public comment.
In a landmark reform, the UAE implemented a shortened workweek on January 1, 2022 UAE – adopting a Saturday-Sunday weekend, with half workday on Fridays.
The new approach was implemented throughout all government bodies, and most private-sector businesses followed suit. On Fridays, the office is only open until noon.
Read More: Beximco to produce medicines in Saudi Arabia from next year
Saudi deal with Iran worries Israel, shakes up Middle East
News of the rapprochement between long-time regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran sent shock waves through the Middle East on Saturday and dealt a symbolic blow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the threat posed by Tehran a public diplomacy priority and personal crusade.
The breakthrough — a culmination of more than a year of negotiations in Baghdad and more recent talks in China — also became ensnared in Israel's internal politics, reflecting the country's divisions at a moment of national turmoil.
The agreement, which gives Iran and Saudi Arabia two months to reopen their respective embassies and re-establish ties after seven years of rupture, more broadly represents one of the most striking shifts in Middle Eastern diplomacy over recent years. In countries like Yemen and Syria, long caught between the Sunni kingdom and the Shiite powerhouse, the announcement stirred cautious optimism.
Read more: Negotiated with China, rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran agree to resume ties
In Israel, it caused disappointment — along with finger-pointing.
One of Netanyahu's greatest foreign policy triumphs remains Israel's U.S.-brokered normalization deals in 2020 with four Arab states, including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. They were part of a wider push to isolate and oppose Iran in the region.
He has portrayed himself as the only politician capable of protecting Israel from Tehran's rapidly accelerating nuclear program and regional proxies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel and Iran have also waged a regional shadow war that has led to suspected Iranian drone strikes on Israeli-linked ships ferrying goods in the Persian Gulf, among other attacks.
A normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and wealthy Arab state, would fulfill Netanyahu's prized goal, reshaping the region and boosting Israel's standing in historic ways. Even as backdoor relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia have grown, the kingdom has said it won't officially recognize Israel before a resolution to the decadeslong Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Read more: Syria hopes Iran-Saudi agreement will ease regional tension
Since returning to office late last year, Netanyahu and his allies have hinted that a deal with the kingdom could be approaching. In a speech to American Jewish leaders last month, Netanyahu described a peace agreement as "a goal that we are working on in parallel with the goal of stopping Iran."
But experts say the Saudi-Iran deal that announced Friday has thrown cold water on those ambitions. Saudi Arabia's decision to engage with its regional rival has left Israel largely alone as it leads the charge for diplomatic isolation of Iran and threats of a unilateral military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The UAE also resumed formal relations with Iran last year.
"It's a blow to Israel's notion and efforts in recent years to try to form an anti-Iran bloc in the region," said Yoel Guzansky, an expert on the Persian Gulf at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank. "If you see the Middle East as a zero-sum game, which Israel and Iran do, a diplomatic win for Iran is very bad news for Israel."
Even Danny Danon, a Netanyahu ally and former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. who recently predicted a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia in 2023, seemed disconcerted.
"This is not supporting our efforts," he said, when asked about whether the rapprochement hurt chances for the kingdom's recognition of Israel.
In Yemen, where the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has played out with the most destructive consequences, both warring parties were guarded, but hopeful.
A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen's conflict in 2015, months after the Iran-backed Houthi militias seized the capital of Sanaa in 2014, forcing the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia.
The Houthi rebels welcomed the agreement as a modest but positive step.
"The region needs the return of normal relations between its countries, through which the Islamic society can regain security lost from foreign interventions," said Houthi spokesman and chief negotiator Mohamed Abdulsalam.
Read more: China denies hidden motives after hosting Iran-Saudi talks
The Saudi-backed Yemeni government expressed some optimism — and caveats.
"The Yemeni government's position depends on actions and practices not words and claims," it said, adding it would proceed cautiously "until observing a true change in (Iranian) behavior."
Analysts did not expect an immediate settlement to the conflict, but said direct talks and better relations could create momentum for a separate agreement that may offer both countries an exit from a disastrous war.
"The ball now is in the court of the Yemeni domestic warring parties to prioritize Yemen's national interest in reaching a peace deal and be inspired by this initial positive step," said Afrah Nasser, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Arab Center.
Anna Jacobs, senior Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group, said she believed the deal was tied to a de-escalation in Yemen.
"It is difficult to imagine a Saudi-Iran agreement to resume diplomatic relations and re-open embassies within a two-month period without some assurances from Iran to more seriously support conflict resolution efforts in Yemen," she said.
War-scarred Syria similarly welcomed the agreement as a move toward easing tensions that have exacerbated the country's conflict. Iran has been a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, while Saudi Arabia has supported opposition fighters trying to remove him from power.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry called it an "important step that will lead to strengthening security and stability in the region."
In Israel, bitterly divided and gripped by mass protests over plans by Netanyahu's far-right government to overhaul the judiciary, politicians seized on the rapprochement between the kingdom and Israel's archenemy as an opportunity to criticize Netanyahu, accusing him of focusing on his personal agenda at the expense of Israel's international relations.
Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and head of Israel's opposition, denounced the agreement between Riyadh and Tehran as "a full and dangerous failure of the Israeli government's foreign policy."
"This is what happens when you deal with legal madness all day instead of doing the job with Iran and strengthening relations with the U.S.," he wrote on Twitter. Even Yuli Edelstein from Netanyahu's Likud party blamed Israel's "power struggles and head-butting" for distracting the country from its more pressing threats.
Another opposition lawmaker, Gideon Saar, mocked Netanyahu's goal of formal ties with the kingdom. "Netanyahu promised peace with Saudi Arabia," he wrote on social media. "In the end (Saudi Arabia) did it … with Iran."
Netanyahu, on an official visit to Italy, declined a request for comment and issued no statement on the matter. But quotes to Israeli media by an anonymous senior official in the delegation sought to put blame on the previous government that ruled for a year and a half before Netanyahu returned to office. "It happened because of the impression that Israel and the U.S. were weak," said the senior official, according to the Haaretz daily, which hinted that Netanyahu was the official.
Despite the fallout for Netanyahu's reputation, experts doubted a detente would harm Israel. Saudi Arabia and Iran will remain regional rivals, even if they open embassies in each other's capitals, said Guzansky. And like the UAE, Saudi Arabia could deepen relations with Israel even while maintaining a transactional relationship with Iran.
"The low-key arrangement that the Saudis have with Israel will continue," said Umar Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham, noting that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank remained more of a barrier to Saudi recognition than differences over Iran. "The Saudi leadership is engaging in more than one way to secure its national security."
Yemen sides begin UN-brokered talks on prisoner exchange
Yemen’s warring sides began talks Saturday aimed at implementing a U.N.-brokered deal on a prisoner exchange, the United Nations said.
The discussions between Yemen’s internationally recognized government and the Houthi rebels are talking place in Switzerland. They are co-chaired by U.N. envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Grundberg urged both parties to “engage in serious and forthcoming discussions to agree on releasing as many detainees as possible,” according to a U.N. statement.
Also Read: British navy seizes Iran missiles, parts likely Yemen bound
“I urge the parties to fulfill the commitments they made, not just to each other, but also to the thousands of Yemeni families who have been waiting to be reunited with their loved ones for far too long,” he said.
Yemen’s conflict erupted in 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north. That prompted a Saudi-led coalition to intervene months later in a bid to restore the internationally recognized government to power.
Jason Straziuso, a Geneva-based spokesperson for the ICRC, characterized the meeting as an opportunity to “reduce the humanitarian suffering associated with this conflict.”
“If more detainees are released, it will be welcome news for families that can be re-united with loved ones,” he said.
Majed Fadail, Yemen's deputy minister for human rights and a member of the government delegation, said the talks would last for 11 days, the government-run SABA news agency reported.
He said they were eager to release all war prisoners to help achieve a “lasting and comprehensive peace” in Yemen.
Abdul-Qader el-Murtaza, the head of the Houthi delegation, said they hoped that this round of talks proves “decisive.”
The talks are a follow-up to a 2018 agreement that demanded that both parties release all those detained in relation to the conflict “without any exceptions or conditions.”
The Detainees’ Exchange Agreement was part of a wider U.N.-brokered deal that ended months of fighting over the crucial Red Sea city of Hodeida four years ago. Since then, the two parties have released many prisoners with a major exchange taking place in October 2020 and involving more than 1,000 detainees from both sides.
The conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters and has become in recent years a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The Yemen talks in Switzerland began a day after Iran and Saudi Arabia announced a China-brokered deal to re-establish diplomatic ties after years of frayed ties and hostilities.
Syria hopes Iran-Saudi agreement will ease regional tension
Syria on Saturday welcomed the agreement reached between Iran and Saudi Arabia to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies saying it will lead to more stability in the region.
Iran has been a main backer of President Bashar Assad’s government, while Saudi Arabia supports opposition fighters trying to remove him from power.
Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed Friday to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies after seven years of tensions. The major diplomatic breakthrough negotiated with China decreases the likelihood of armed conflict between the regional rivals, both directly and in proxy conflicts.
The deal was struck in Beijing amid China's ceremonial National People’s Congress. It represents a major diplomatic victory for the Chinese as Gulf Arab states perceive the United States to be slowly withdrawing from the wider Middle East. It also comes as diplomats have been trying to end Yemen's lengthy conflict, in which both Iran and Saudi Arabia are deeply entrenched.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has wanted to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia, but the deal with Iran, Israel's arch-rival, will complicate that. It also could make Israel feel more alone if it decides to carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program as it creeps closer to weapons-grade levels.
Also Read: Negotiated with China, rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran agree to resume ties
Syria’s Foreign Ministry welcomed the agreement in a statement calling it an “important step that will lead to strengthening security and stability in the region.”
It added that the agreement will also lead to cooperation that will “reflect positively on the common interests of the peoples of the two countries in particular and the peoples of the region in general.”
After the Feb. 6 earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 50,000 people including more than 6,000 in Syria, Saudi Arabia was one of several Arab countries that delivered aid to government-held parts of Syria.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry admitted this week that there is a “consensus growing” among Gulf monarchies and other Arab countries that isolating Damascus is not working and dialogue is necessary. Syria’s membership in the Arab League, a confederation of Arab administrations, was suspended in 2011 for its brutal crackdown on protesters.
Syria’s conflict, which enters its 13th year next week, has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.
Negotiated with China, rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran agree to resume ties
Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed Friday to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of tensions. The major diplomatic breakthrough negotiated with China lowers the chance of armed conflict between the Mideast rivals — both directly and in proxy conflicts around the region.
The deal, struck in Beijing this week amid its ceremonial National People’s Congress, represents a major diplomatic victory for the Chinese as Gulf Arab states perceive the United States slowly withdrawing from the wider Middle East. It also comes as diplomats have been trying to end a long war in Yemen, a conflict in which both Iran and Saudi Arabia are deeply entrenched.
The two countries released a joint communique on the deal with China, which brokered the agreement as President Xi Jinping was awarded a third five-year term as leader earlier Friday.
Xi, whose administration in recent days has relaunched a campaign to challenge the U.S.-led Western liberal order with warnings of “conflict and confrontation,” was credited in a trilateral statement with facilitating the talks through a “noble initiative” and having personally agreed to sponsor the negotiations that lasted from Monday through Friday.
Videos showed Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, meeting with Saudi national security adviser Musaad bin Mohammed al-Aiban and Wang Yi, China's most senior diplomat.
The statement calls for reestablishing ties and reopening embassies to happen “within a maximum period of two months.” A meeting by their foreign ministers is also planned.
In the video, Wang could be heard offering “wholehearted congratulations” on the two countries' “wisdom."
“Both sides have displayed sincerity,” he said. “China fully supports this agreement.”
The United Nations welcomed the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement and thanked China for its role. “Good neighborly relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia are essential for the stability of the Gulf region,” U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said at U.N. headquarters.
The U.S. also welcomed “any efforts to help end the war in Yemen and de-escalate tensions in the Middle East region,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. However, the State Department offered a word of caution about an agreement in which America seems to have played no part: “Of course, it remains to be seen whether the Iranian regime will honor their side of the deal.”
China, which last month hosted Iran's hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, is a top purchaser of Saudi oil. Xi visited Riyadh in December for meetings with oil-rich Gulf Arab nations crucial to China’s energy supplies. However, it doesn't provide the same military protections for Gulf Arab states as America, making Beijing's involvement that much more notable.
Iran's state-run IRNA news agency quoted Shamkhani as calling the talks "clear, transparent, comprehensive and constructive.”
“Removing misunderstandings and the future-oriented views in relations between Tehran and Riyadh will definitely lead to improving regional stability and security, as well as increasing cooperation among Persian Gulf nations and the world of Islam for managing current challenges,” Shamkhani said.
Al-Aiban thanked Iraq and Oman for mediating between Iran and the kingdom, according to his remarks carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
“While we value what we have reached, we hope that we will continue to continue the constructive dialogue,” the Saudi official said.
Tensions long have been high between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The kingdom broke ties with Iran in 2016 after protesters invaded Saudi diplomatic posts there. Saudi Arabia had executed a prominent Shiite cleric with 46 others days earlier, triggering the demonstrations.
That came as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, then a deputy, began his rise to power. The son of King Salman, Prince Mohammed previously compared Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler, and threatened to strike Iran.
Since then, the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks after that, including one targeting the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry in 2019, temporarily halving the kingdom's crude production.
Though Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels initially claimed the attack, Western nations and experts blamed Tehran. Iran denied it and also denied carrying out other assaults later attributed to the Islamic Republic.
Religion also plays a key role in their relations. Saudi Arabia, home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that Muslims pray toward five times a day, has portrayed itself as the world’s leading Sunni nation. Iran’s theocracy, meanwhile, views itself as the protector of Islam’s Shiite minority.
The two powerhouses have competing interests elsewhere, such as in the turmoil in Lebanon and in the rebuilding of Iraq following the U.S.-led 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The leader of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia and political group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said the agreement could "open new horizons” in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. Iraq, Oman and the United Arab Emirates also praised the accord.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute who long has studied the region, said Saudi Arabia reaching the deal with Iran came after the United Arab Emirates reached a similar understanding with Tehran.
“This dialing down of tensions and de-escalation has been underway for three years and this was triggered by Saudi acknowledgement in their view that without unconditional U.S. backing they were unable to project power vis-a-vis Iran and the rest of the region,” he said.
Prince Mohammed, focused on massive construction projects at home, likely wants to pull out of the Yemen war as well, Ulrichsen added.
“Instability could do a lot of damage to his plans,” he said.
The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition armed with U.S. weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in 2015. Years of inconclusive fighting created a humanitarian disaster and pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine.
A six-month cease-fire, the longest of the Yemen conflict, expired in October.
Negotiations have been ongoing recently, including in Oman, a longtime interlocutor between Iran and the U.S. Some have hoped for an agreement ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins later in March. Iran and Saudi Arabia have held intermittent talks in recent years but it wasn't clear if Yemen was the impetus for this new detente.
Yemeni rebel spokesman Mohamed Abdulsalam appeared to welcome the deal in a statement that also slammed the U.S. and Israel. "The region needs the return of normal relations between its countries, through which the Islamic society can regain its lost security as a result of the foreign interventions, led by the Zionists and Americans,″ he said.
For Israel, which has wanted to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia despite the Palestinians remaining without a state of their own, Riyadh easing tensions with Iran could complicate its own regional calculations.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered no immediate comment Friday. Netanyahu, under pressure politically at home, has threatened military action against Iran's nuclear program as it enriches closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Riyadh seeking peace with Tehran takes one potential ally for a strike off the table.
It was unclear what this development meant for Washington. Though long viewed as guaranteeing Mideast energy security, regional leaders have grown increasingly wary of U.S. intentions after its chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
But the White House bristled at the notion a Saudi-Iran agreement in Beijing suggests a rise of Chinese influence in the Mideast. “I would stridently push back on this idea that we’re stepping back in the Middle East — far from it,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Mark Dubowitz, head of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which opposes the Iran nuclear deal, said renewed Iran-Saudi ties via Chinese mediation "is a lose, lose, lose for American interests,” noting: “Beijing adores a vacuum.”
But Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute, which advocates engagement with Iran and supports the nuclear deal, called it “good news for the Middle East, since Saudi-Iranian tensions have been a driver of instability.” He added that “China has emerged as a player that can resolve disputes rather than merely sell weapons to the conflicting parties,” noting a more stable Middle East also benefits the U.S.
Iran, Saudi Arabia agree to resume relations after tensions
Iran and Saudi Arabia on Friday agreed to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after years of tensions between the two countries, including a devastating attack on the heart of the kingdom's oil production attributed to Tehran.
The deal, struck in Beijing this week amid its ceremonial National People’s Congress, represents a major diplomatic victory for the Chinese as Gulf states perceive the United States slowly withdrawing from the wider Middle East. It also comes as diplomats have been trying to end a yearslong war in Yemen, a conflict in which both Iran and Saudi Arabia are deeply entrenched.
The two countries released a joint communique with China on the deal, which apparently brokered the agreement. Chinese state media did not immediately report on the deal.
Iranian state media posted images and video it described as being taken in China with the meeting. It showed Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, with a Saudi official and a Chinese official that state TV named as Wang Yi.
“After implementing of the decision, the foreign ministers of the both nations will meet to prepare for exchange of ambassadors,” Iranian state television said. It added that the talks had been held over four days.
Saudi Arabian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Shortly after the Iranian announcement, Saudi state media began publishing the same statement.
Read more: Risky Gulf Arab strategy tested by killing of Iran general
Tensions have been high between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The kingdom broke off ties with Iran in 2016 after protesters invaded Saudi diplomatic posts there. Saudi Arabia days earlier had executed a prominent Shiite cleric, triggering the demonstrations.
In the years since, tensions have risen dramatically across the Middle East since the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks in the time since, including one that targeted the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry in 2019, temporarily halving the kingdom's crude production.
Though Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels initially claimed the attack, Western nations and experts have blamed the attack on Tehran. Iran long has denied launching the attack. It has also denied carrying out other assaults later attributed to the Islamic Republic.
The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition armed with U.S. weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in March 2015. Years of inconclusive fighting has created a humanitarian disaster and pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine.
A six-month cease-fire in Yemen’s war, the longest of the conflict, expired in October despite diplomatic efforts to renew it. That led to fears the war could again escalate. More than 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen during the fighting, including over 14,500 civilians.
In recent months, negotiations have been ongoing, including in Oman, a longtime interlocutor between Iran and the U.S. Some have hoped for an agreement ahead of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which will begin later in March.
The U.S. Navy and its allies have seized a number of weapons shipments recently they describe as coming from Iran heading to Yemen. Iran denies arming the Houthis, despite weapons seized mirroring others seen on the battlefield in the rebels' hands. A United Nations arms embargo bars nations from sending weapons to the Houthis.
Read more: Iran says oil tanker struck by missiles off Saudi Arabia
Palestinian killed by Israeli fire in West Bank
A Palestinian man who entered a settlement in the occupied West Bank armed with knives and explosive devices was shot and killed by an Israeli settler on Friday, the Israeli military said, just hours after a Palestinian gunman shot and wounded Israelis in downtown Tel Aviv.
The new violence was the latest to grip Israel and the West Bank in one of the deadliest periods of unrest among Israelis and Palestinians in years.
The Israeli military said the armed Palestinian slipped into a farm near the settlement of Karnei Shomron, in the northern West Bank, and was fatally shot by an Israeli settler overseeing the land. Palestinian authorities identified the man as 21-year-old Abed al-Sheikh. His father, Badaie al-Sheikh, said Israeli security forces searched his house, interrogated him and confiscated his son's phone in the nearby Palestinian village of Saniriya.
Hours earlier, Israeli security forces entered the Palestinian village of Naalin and prepared to demolish the family house of the Palestinian suspected of carrying out the shooting in Tel Aviv on Thursday night. The shooter had opened fire near Dizengoff Street in a bustling area of Tel Aviv’s city center and wounded three Israelis, including one critically.
Hamas group claimed the attacker, a 23-year-old former prisoner named Moataz Khawaja, as a member of the organization’s armed wing. Hamas said the shooting came in response to an Israeli military arrest raid that day that killed three gunmen in the northern village of Jaba, along with another raid earlier this week that killed seven Palestinians in the flashpoint Jenin refugee camp, including a wanted assailant and a 14-year-old boy.
“We promise more painful strikes throughout our occupied land as long as (Israel's) aggression continues and its crimes escalate,” the Palestinian group said.
Israeli police said Friday they were continuing their investigation into the attack, and that two men from the Israeli town of Ramle, near Tel Aviv, and the Bedouin town of Kuseife, in the Negev desert, had turned themselves in over their alleged smuggling of the gunman and other Palestinians from the occupied West Bank into Israel.
As Israeli forces stormed into Naalin and arrested two family members of the suspected attacker for questioning, they said they were met by a barrage of explosive devices, Molotov cocktails and stones. Israeli troops responded with gunfire, which they said struck at least one Palestinian. The person's condition was unclear.
Before being arrested, Khawaja's father, Salah Khawaja, said he felt pride in his son for carrying out the attack. Like many Palestinians living in an environment where attacks on Israelis are celebrated and their perpetrators exalted, he expressed little sympathy for Israeli civilians and said he understood his son's desire for revenge.
“Praise God, Moataz is beloved by everyone,” he told reporters. “Any young man who witnesses such massacres will naturally respond.”
Further north, Israeli forces entered the Palestinian city of Tulkarm, home to an emerging armed group that has increasingly attracted young Palestinians angry at Israeli violence and disillusioned by their leadership. Gunmen opened fire, striking an Israeli military vehicle in the city, the army said. Others hurled explosive devices and shot at Israeli forces from a passing car. The Israeli army said it responded with live fire. There were no immediate reports of casualties on either side.
The past few months have been marked by rising violence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the Gaza strip in the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians seek them for a future independent state.
At least 75 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire during military arrest raids and other confrontations so far this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Over that same period, a series of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis has left at least 14 Israelis dead so far this year, all but one of them civilians.
The upsurge in deaths has raised fears of a possible greater escalation under Israel's most right-wing government in history, which has pledged tough action against the Palestinians.
3 Palestinians killed in Israeli military raid
At least three Palestinians were killed on Thursday, Palestinian officials said, after Israeli security forces raided a village in the northern occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military did not immediately offer comment on the raid into the village of Jaba, south of the flashpoint city of Jenin. The Palestinian Health Ministry did not identify the dead, but said they were shot by Israeli fire during an Israeli military operation.
For the past few months, the village of Jaba has been home to a fledgling militant group of disillusioned young Palestinians who have taken up guns against Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year. The group is part of a larger trend of emerging armed groups across the West Bank that have defied the increasingly unpopular Palestinian Authority and claim no ties to any specific political party.
The past two months have been marked by escalating violence across the West Bank.
Will China's next premier be a moderating influence on Xi?
The pro-business track record of the man poised to become China's top economic official will make his term a test of whether he might moderate President Xi Jinping 's tendency to intervene.
Li Qiang, 63, who is expected to be chosen China's premier on Saturday, will have to grapple with a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy, which is dealing with emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, weak global demand for exports, lingering U.S. tariff hikes, a shrinking workforce and an aging population.
Xi, who has bolstered the state sector, has said that he wants the ruling party to return to its "original mission" as China's economic, social and cultural leader. That has been accompanied by tighter control over some industries, more aggressive censorship of TV and pop culture and the spread of a "social credit" system that penalizes the public for offenses ranging from fraud to littering. Xi took China's most powerful role in 2012.
Now, observers are watching whether Li can roll out pragmatic policies during his five-year term. But the process of political decision-making in China is opaque, making analyzing the country's direction a difficult matter for outsiders.
Expectations are based on Li's performance as the party chief of the country's largest city — Shanghai — and as the governor of neighboring Zhejiang province, a hub of small and mid-sized business. And, perhaps more importantly, his close ties with Xi.
Li was quoted as saying in a 2013 interview with respected business magazine Caixin that officials should "put the government's hands back in place, put away the restless hands, retract the overstretched hands."
Li hailed Zhejiang's businessmen as the most valuable resource in the province, pointing to e-commerce billionaire Jack Ma, and he highlighted his government's cutting red tape.
In contrast, Li has also strictly enforced some state controls, including rules meant to prevent the spread of COVID-19. When his local rule has been out of tune with national policies set by the president and his team, he has eventually fallen into step, seen as key to his rise.
Under President Xi, entrepreneurs have been rattled not just by tighter political controls and anti-COVID curbs but more control over e-commerce and other tech companies. Anti-monopoly and data security crackdowns have wiped billions of dollars off companies' stock-market value. Beijing is also pressing them to pay for social programs and official initiatives to develop processor chips and other technology.
A native of Zhejiang, Li studied agricultural mechanization and worked his way up the provincial party ranks. In 2003, he started an executive MBA program at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, common among ambitious party cadres.
Priscilla Lau, a former professor of the university and former Hong Kong delegate to China's legislature, said Li attended her class on Hong Kong's free-market economy for a chamber in the city and said he recalled her class when they met in Shanghai more than a decade later.
"It shows he's very diligent," Lau said.
Li's working relationship with Xi began in the 2000s when the latter was appointed party chief in Zhejiang. Following Xi's eventual move to Beijing and appointment as party general secretary, Li was promoted to Zhejiang governor in 2013, the No. 2 role in the provincial government.
Three years later, Li was appointed party chief of Jiangsu province, an economic powerhouse on the east coast of China, marking the first time he held a position outside his home province. In 2017, he was named party boss of Shanghai, a role held by Xi before the president stepped into China's core leadership roles.
In the commercial hub of Shanghai, Li continued to pursue pro-business policies. In 2018, electric car producer Tesla announced it would build its first factory outside the United States. It broke ground half a year later as the first wholly foreign-owned automaker in China. Even during the strict COVID lockdown in Shanghai last year, the factory managed to resume production after a roughly 20-day suspension, official news agency Xinhua reported.
Tesla vice-president Tao Lin was quoted saying that several government departments had worked almost round-the-clock to help businesses resume work.
"The Shanghai government bent over backwards," said Tu Le, managing director of Sino Auto Insights, a Beijing-based advisory firm.
On more complicated issues, not everything has been smooth sailing.
Though Li helped shepherd an agreement between Chinese and European companies to produce mRNA vaccines, Beijing was not in favor and the deal was put on hold, said Joerg Wuttke, the president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.
Before the citywide lockdown, Li appeared to have more leeway to manage the financial hub's smaller previous outbreaks than most other cities' leaders did. Rather than sealing districts off, the government implemented limited lockdowns of housing compounds and workplaces.
When the highly contagious Omicron variant hit Shanghai, Li took a moderate approach until the central government stepped in and sealed off the city. The brutal two-month lockdown last spring confined 25 million people to their homes and severely disrupted the economy.
Li was named No. 2 in the ruling Communist Party in October when China's president broke with past norms and awarded himself a third five-year term as general secretary.
Unlike most of his predecessors, Li has no government experience at the national level, and his reputation was dented by ruthless enforcement of the lengthy COVID-19 lockdown in the financial hub that was criticized as excessive.
His expected appointment appears to indicate that an ability to win the trust of Xi, China's most powerful figure in decades, is the key determinant when it comes to political advancement.
As premier, Li faces a diminishing role for the State Council, China's Cabinet, as Xi moves to absorb government powers into party bodies, believing the party should play a greater role in Chinese society. Still, some commentators believe he will be more trusted, and therefore more influential, than his predecessor, who was seen as a rival to Xi, not a protege.
"Xi Jinping does not have to worry about Li Qiang being a separate locus of power," said Ho Pin, a veteran journalist and Chinese political observer. "Trust between them also allows Li Qiang to work more proactively and share his worries, and he will directly give Xi a lot of information and suggestions."
Iris Pang, ING's chief China economist, sees Li mainly as a loyal enforcer of Xi's will rather than a moderating influence.
Li was pro-business because he was required to be so in his previous government roles, Pang said.
His key trait, she said, is his "strong execution."