UN rights chief slams Israel’s ‘blatant disregard’ for law; Jordan’s Islamists aim to shake up Parliament

Jordan’s main opposition, buoyed by anger over the Gaza war, said it expected its Islamists to win enough seats in Tuesday’s election to loudly challenge the country’s pro-Western stance, a result that could stir up the kingdom’s staid political scene.

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi hoped to hold talks with new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian by November on improving Iran’s cooperation with his agency, he said on Monday.

UN rights chief urges states to challenge Israel over occupation

The UN human rights chief said on Monday that ending the nearly year-long war in Gaza was a priority and he asked countries to act on what he called Israel’s “blatant disregard” for international law in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Nearly 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials, since Israel unleashed a military campaign in response to cross-border attacks by Hamas militants on 7 October in which 1,200 people were killed and a further 250 taken hostage. The conflict has also fuelled a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“Ending that war and averting a full-blown regional conflict is an absolute and urgent priority,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said in a speech at the start of the five-week UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva.

“States must not — cannot — accept blatant disregard for international law, including binding decisions of the [UN] Security Council and orders of the International Court of Justice, neither in this nor any other situation.”

He cited an opinion released by the UN top court in July that called Israel’s occupation illegal. Turk said this situation had to be “comprehensively addressed”. Israel has rejected the opinion and called it one-sided.

Turk’s comments were given in a broad speech marking the midway point of his four-year term as UN rights chief where he described massive challenges around the world and a crisis of political leadership.

Jordan’s Islamists seek to shake up Parliament at polls

Jordan’s main opposition, buoyed by anger over the Gaza war, said it expected its Islamists to win enough seats in Tuesday’s election to loudly challenge the country’s pro-Western stance, a result that could stir up the kingdom’s staid political scene.

The opposition Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, said its voice was needed in the assembly to help reverse unpopular economic policies, stand up to laws curbing public freedoms and oppose further normalisation with Israel, with which Jordan has a 1994 peace treaty.

“It’s enough that there is a significant bloc that is able to influence public opinion and the general political scene,” Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood and an ideological ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, told Reuters.

In a country where anti-Israel sentiment runs high, the Gaza war is expected to help the electoral fortunes of the IAF, which is Jordan’s largest opposition party and has led some of the region’s biggest rallies backing Hamas.

Hundreds took to the streets of Amman to celebrate on Sunday, hours after a gunman from Jordan shot dead three Israeli civilians at a border crossing in the occupied West Bank.

The IAF, fielding only 38 candidates for the 138-seat assembly, is unlikely to unseat the tribal, centrist and pro-government deputies who dominate a system under-representing cities, where their Islamist and liberal opponents do best.

But the Islamists, who have angered the authorities with demands to abrogate the peace treaty and end commercial ties with Israel, are urging supporters to go out and vote to show their opposition to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

“Today what is happening in Gaza is an existentialist battle and neither the Jordanian or Islamic movement can be bystanders. The voice of the Jordanian street was heard and influential,” Adailah said in an interview on Monday.

He said the Jordanian state needed a strong Parliament more than ever, arguing that a vocal IAF parliamentary presence could strengthen Jordan’s ability to navigate, and if necessary stand up to, any pressures it might face from Israel and Western allies.

Adailah was echoing sentiments by many Jordanians across the political spectrum, who fear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government seeks a wider war in which Palestinians in the occupied West Bank could be pushed out to Jordan.

Nuclear watchdog chief hopes to hold talks with Iranian president

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi hoped to hold talks with new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian by November on improving Iran’s cooperation with his agency, he said on Monday.

Several long-standing issues are dogging relations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, including Tehran’s barring of uranium-enrichment experts on the inspection team and its failure for years to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

“He [Pezeshkian] agreed to meet with me at an appropriate juncture,” Grossi said in a statement to a quarterly meeting of his agency’s 35-nation board of governors, referring to an exchange after Pezeshkian’s election in July.

“I encourage Iran to facilitate such a meeting in the not-too-distant future so that we can establish a constructive dialogue that leads swiftly to real results,” he said.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board resolutions ordering Iran to cooperate urgently with the investigation into the uranium traces and calling on it to reverse its barring of inspectors have brought little change, and quarterly IAEA reports seen by Reuters on 29 August showed no progress.

Iran responded to the latest resolution in June by announcing an expansion of its enrichment capacity, installing more centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, at its Natanz and Fordow sites.

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox parties help approve more funding for war

Israeli legislators gave their initial approval on Monday to raising the 2024 budget framework to help fund reservists and assist people displaced as a result of the war in Gaza, with support coming from ultra-Orthodox parties.

The vote to add 3.4 billion shekels ($906-million) to the 2024 budget passed by a 58-52 margin, the Finance Ministry said.

Ultra-Orthodox parties had threatened to boycott votes in Parliament in a dispute over funding for their separate education system.

The Bill still needs to pass two more votes to become law.

The rift with ultra-Orthodox parties is a test of the unity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government as Israel presses on with its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The two religious parties, which occupy 18 of Parliament’s 120 seats, said last week they would not participate in plenum votes until the government agreed that schools in their separate education system should receive the same benefits as state-run schools — especially their “New Horizon” programme which adds school hours and sharply boosts teacher pay.

A spokesperson for Moshe Gafni, leader of one of the ultra-Orthodox parties, said the faction had decided to vote for the budget this time. It was not clear about voting in future votes.

“The budget adjustments will enable the conditions required for the continuous continuation of the war against those who seek our harm,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Israel budget deficit widens further amid war

Israel posted a budget deficit of 12.1 billion shekels ($3.24-billion) in August, the Finance Ministry said on Monday, citing high expenses to finance the war with the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas in Gaza.

The deficit for the 12 months to August rose to 8.3% of gross domestic product, from 8.0% in the 12 months to July, compared to a target of 6.6% for all of 2024.

Spending on the war, which began last October, has reached some 97 billion shekels.

The ministry said the deficit would continue to increase through the third quarter before moving back to its target.

US urges Israel to end probe into killing of activist in West Bank

The US on Monday called on Israel to complete a full inquiry into the killing of an American Turkish woman last week in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, saying it believed Israel has begun such a probe.

Turkish and Palestinian officials said on Friday that Israeli troops shot 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi who had been taking part in a protest against settlement expansion.

“Our understanding is that our partners in Israel are looking into the circumstances of what happened, and we expect them to make their findings public and expect that whatever those findings are, expect them to be thorough and transparent,” US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told a news briefing.

Palestinian news agency Wafa said the incident took place during a protest march by activists in Beita, a village near Nablus that has seen repeated attacks on Palestinians by Jewish settlers.

Israel’s military said it was looking into reports that a female foreign national “was killed as a result of shots fired in the area. The details of the incident and the circumstances in which she was hit are under review.” DM

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