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SvennoJ on 03 December 2024
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Israeli PM Netanyahu ordered to take stand in corruption trial

Ending a long series of delays and postponements, a court in Israel has ordered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the stand next Tuesday in his lengthy corruption trial.

In the ruling announced on Tuesday, judges in the Jerusalem district court said that following a security assessment, Netanyahu’s testimony will be moved to the Tel Aviv district court where Israeli media said the session would take place in an underground chamber.

The Associated Press news agency reports that Netanyahu’s lawyers had filed multiple requests to put off the testimony, arguing first that Israel’s war on Gaza prevented him from properly preparing for his day in court. He also argued that his security could not be guaranteed in the court chamber.

The Israeli leader is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate scandals involving powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. He has denied wrongdoing.

Netanyahu’s testimony, which began in 2020, is expected to begin on December 10 and to last at least several weeks, AP reports.



UNGA passes resolution to host two-state solution peace conference next year

Some 157 member states voted in favour of the resolution, which called for a high-level peace conference to be held to achieve a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Wednesday.

The draft resolution, submitted by Senegal and co-sponsored by several countries, was opposed by eight members – including Israel, the US, and Argentina – while seven abstained.

The resolution called for a “High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution”.

“The Conference will be held from 2 to 4 June 2025 in New York, preceded by a preparatory meeting, to be held in May 2025,” it said, adding that a declaration outlining a roadmap for a peaceful resolution to the conflict shall be adopted at the end of the conference.

The resolution also demanded that Israel “bring an end to its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible, to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.



Another 6 months...



Kamal Adwan staff in critical condition after latest drone attack on hospital

Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said that one of three medical staff wounded in an Israeli drone attack on the medical facility is in critical condition and undergoing complex surgery. Abu Safia said Israeli quadcopter drones dropped bombs on the hospital which sprayed shrapnel, leading to the latest casualties among staff.

“The situation has become extremely dangerous,” the hospital director said in comments released by Gaza’s Health Ministry. “We are exhausted by the ongoing violence and atrocities,” added Abu Safia, who was wounded in his thigh and back by an Israeli drone strike on the hospital last month.

Just last week, an Israeli drone killed Dr Ahmed al-Kahlout, the director of Kamal Adwan’s Intensive Care Unit, as he was reportedly passing through the gate of the hospital, which has been under Israeli military siege for weeks in northern Gaza.