 "Israeli finance minister halts fund transfers to Palestinian Authority")
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday said he had instructed the ministry to halt the transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority(PA) and is urging the cabinet to reevaluate its policy on such funds, in light of what Smotrich characterises as PA “support” for Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught.
The funds are part of customs duties Israel collects on behalf of the PA. Israel has made such deductions in the past, following 2018 legislation that cites the PA’s payment of stipends to terrorists and their families. But it only partially upholds the policy, as officials are keenly aware that the PA is dangerously close to financial collapse.
Mob at Russian airport
Russia accused Ukraine of staging a “provocation” after hundreds of rioters in Russia’s predominantly Muslim Dagestan region stormed an airport to “catch” Jewish passengers on board a flight from Tel Aviv. Kyiv said it had nothing to do with the unrest, which left at least 20 people injured.
Videos obtained by Reuters from the airport at Makhachkala, the regional capital of Dagestan, showed the rioters, mostly young men, waving Palestinian flags, breaking down glass doors and running through the airport on Sunday evening shouting “Allahu Akbar” or “God is Greatest”.
Police said they had arrested 60 people in connection with the unrest and identified 150 of the most active participants.
The passengers on the plane were safe, security forces told Reuters.
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Gaza aid
Nearly three dozen trucks entered Gaza in the largest aid convoy since the war between Israel and Hamas began, but humanitarian workers said the assistance still fell desperately short of needs after thousands of people broke into warehouses to take flour and basic hygiene products.
Tanks roll in, roll out
Israeli troops and armour pushed deeper into the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, reaching built-up areas as the UN and medical staff warned that airstrikes are hitting closer to hospitals, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter alongside thousands of wounded.
The tanks later in the day retreated.
Abducted woman killed
Shani Louk, a German woman who had been captured by Hamas operatives on October 7, has died and her body has been found by the Israeli troops in Gaza, her family and Israel government confirmed on Monday.
Unit 8200
On October 7, the head of Israel’s domestic security service, could not determine if what he was seeing was just another Hamas military exercise. Israeli intelligence and national security officials, who had convinced themselves that Hamas had no interest in going to war, initially assumed it was just a nighttime exercise. Their judgment that night might have been different had they been listening to traffic on the hand-held radios of Hamas militants. But Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, had stopped eavesdropping on those networks a year earlier because they saw it as a waste of effort.
China military forum
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday the United States is fuelling geopolitical tensions to uphold its “hegemony” and warned of the risk of confrontation between major countries.
Speaking at a defence forum in Beijing, Shoigu also said the US and its Asia-Pacific allies are undermining stability in the region. “To maintain its dominance, the US is deliberately undermining the basis of international security and strategic stability,” Shoigu said, according to a simultaneous translation provided at the Xiangshan Forum, which China’s biggest annual event centered on military diplomacy.
Woman soldier rescued
The Israel Defense Forces said a soldier, Private Ori Megidish, captured by Hamas has been rescued from the Gaza Strip in an overnight operation.