NEWS

Last week, a prominent Saudi Sheikh, Mohammed Al-Issa, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which signalled the end of the Nazi Holocaust. Although dozens of Muslim scholars have visited the site, where about one million Jews were killed during World War Two, according to the Auschwitz Memorial Centre’s press office, Al-Issa is the most senior Muslim religious leader to do so.

Visiting Auschwitz is not a problem for a Muslim; Islam orders Muslims to reject unjustified killing of any human being, no matter what their faith is. Al-Issa is a senior ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), who apparently cares little for the sanctity of human life, though, and the visit to Auschwitz has very definite political connotations beyond any Islamic context.

By sending Al-Issa to the camp, Bin Salman wanted to show his support for Israel, which exploits the Holocaust for geopolitical colonial purposes. “The Israeli government decided that it alone was permitted to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz [in modern day Poland] in 1945,” wrote journalist Richard Silverstein recently when he commented on the gathering of world leaders in Jerusalem for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Holocaust event.

READ: Next up, a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem 

Bin Salman uses Al Issa for such purposes, as if to demonstrate his own Zionist credentials. For example, the head of the Makkah-based Muslim World League is leading rapprochement efforts with Evangelical Christians who are, in the US at least, firm Zionists in their backing for the state of Israel. Al-Issa has called for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem in what would, in effect, be a Zionist troika.

Zionism is not a religion, and there are many non-Jewish Zionists who desire or support the establishment of a Jewish state in occupied Palestine. The definition of Zionism does not mention the religion of its supporters, and Israeli writer Sheri Oz, is just one author who insists that non-Jews can be Zionists.

Mohammad Bin Salman and Netanyahu – Cartoon [Tasnimnews.com/Wikipedia]

We should not be shocked, therefore, to see a Zionist Muslim leader in these trying times. It is reasonable to say that Bin Salman’s grandfather and father were Zionists, as close friends of Zionist leaders. Logic suggests that Bin Salman comes from a Zionist dynasty.

This has been evident from his close relationship with Zionists and positive approaches to the Israeli occupation and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, calling it “[the Jews’] ancestral homeland”. This means that he has no issue with the ethnic cleansing of almost 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, during which thousands were killed and their homes demolished in order to establish the Zionist state of Israel.

“The ‘Jewish state’ claim is how Zionism has tried to mask its intrinsic Apartheid, under the veil of a supposed ‘self-determination of the Jewish people’,” wrote Israeli blogger Jonathan Ofir in Mondoweiss in 2018, “and for the Palestinians it has meant their dispossession.”

As the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Bin Salman has imprisoned dozens of Palestinians, including representatives of Hamas. In doing so he is serving Israel’s interests. Moreover, he has blamed the Palestinians for not making peace with the occupation state. Bin Salman “excoriated the Palestinians for missing key opportunities,” wrote Danial Benjamin in Moment magazine. He pointed out that the prince’s father, King Salman, has played the role of counterweight by saying that Saudi Arabia “permanently stands by Palestine and its people’s right to an independent state with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.”

UN expert: Saudi crown prince behind hack on Amazon CEO 

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 13 News reported Bin Salman as saying: “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” This is reminiscent of the words of the late Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, one of the Zionist founders of Israel, that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Bin Salman’s Zionism is also very clear in his bold support for US President Donald Trump’s deal of the century, which achieves Zionist goals in Palestine at the expense of Palestinian rights. He participated in the Bahrain conference, the forum where the economic side of the US deal was announced, where he gave “cover to several other Arab countries to attend the event and infuriated the Palestinians.”

US President Donald Trump looks over at Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud as they line up for the family photo during the opening day of Argentina G20 Leaders’ Summit 2018 at Costa Salguero on 30 November 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina [Daniel Jayo/Getty Images]

While discussing the issue of the current Saudi support for Israeli policies and practices in Palestine with a credible Palestinian official last week, he told me that the Palestinians had contacted the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to ask him not to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. “The Saudis have been putting pressure on us in order to relocate our embassy to Jerusalem,” replied the Brazilian leader. What more evidence of Mohammad Bin Salman’s Zionism do we need?

The founder of Friends of Zion Museum is American Evangelical Christian Mike Evans. He said, after visiting a number of the Gulf States, that, “The leaders [there] are more pro-Israel than a lot of Jews.” This was a specific reference to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, and his counterpart in the UAE, Mohammed Bin Zayed.

“All versions of Zionism lead to the same reactionary end of unbridled expansionism and continued settler colonial genocide of [the] Palestinian people,” Israeli-American writer and photographer Yoav Litvin wrote for Al Jazeera. We may well see an Israeli Embassy opened in Riyadh in the near future, and a Saudi Embassy in Tel Aviv or, more likely, Jerusalem. Is Mohammad Bin Salman a Zionist? There’s no doubt about it.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Last week, a prominent Saudi Sheikh, Mohammed Al-Issa, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which signalled the end of the Nazi Holocaust. Although dozens of Muslim scholars have visited the site, where about one million Jews were killed during World War Two, according to the Auschwitz Memorial Centre’s press office, Al-Issa is the most senior Muslim religious leader to do so.

Visiting Auschwitz is not a problem for a Muslim; Islam orders Muslims to reject unjustified killing of any human being, no matter what their faith is. Al-Issa is a senior ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), who apparently cares little for the sanctity of human life, though, and the visit to Auschwitz has very definite political connotations beyond any Islamic context.

By sending Al-Issa to the camp, Bin Salman wanted to show his support for Israel, which exploits the Holocaust for geopolitical colonial purposes. “The Israeli government decided that it alone was permitted to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz [in modern day Poland] in 1945,” wrote journalist Richard Silverstein recently when he commented on the gathering of world leaders in Jerusalem for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Holocaust event.

READ: Next up, a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem 

Bin Salman uses Al Issa for such purposes, as if to demonstrate his own Zionist credentials. For example, the head of the Makkah-based Muslim World League is leading rapprochement efforts with Evangelical Christians who are, in the US at least, firm Zionists in their backing for the state of Israel. Al-Issa has called for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem in what would, in effect, be a Zionist troika.

Zionism is not a religion, and there are many non-Jewish Zionists who desire or support the establishment of a Jewish state in occupied Palestine. The definition of Zionism does not mention the religion of its supporters, and Israeli writer Sheri Oz, is just one author who insists that non-Jews can be Zionists.

Mohammad Bin Salman and Netanyahu – Cartoon [Tasnimnews.com/Wikipedia]

We should not be shocked, therefore, to see a Zionist Muslim leader in these trying times. It is reasonable to say that Bin Salman’s grandfather and father were Zionists, as close friends of Zionist leaders. Logic suggests that Bin Salman comes from a Zionist dynasty.

This has been evident from his close relationship with Zionists and positive approaches to the Israeli occupation and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, calling it “[the Jews’] ancestral homeland”. This means that he has no issue with the ethnic cleansing of almost 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, during which thousands were killed and their homes demolished in order to establish the Zionist state of Israel.

“The ‘Jewish state’ claim is how Zionism has tried to mask its intrinsic Apartheid, under the veil of a supposed ‘self-determination of the Jewish people’,” wrote Israeli blogger Jonathan Ofir in Mondoweiss in 2018, “and for the Palestinians it has meant their dispossession.”

As the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Bin Salman has imprisoned dozens of Palestinians, including representatives of Hamas. In doing so he is serving Israel’s interests. Moreover, he has blamed the Palestinians for not making peace with the occupation state. Bin Salman “excoriated the Palestinians for missing key opportunities,” wrote Danial Benjamin in Moment magazine. He pointed out that the prince’s father, King Salman, has played the role of counterweight by saying that Saudi Arabia “permanently stands by Palestine and its people’s right to an independent state with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.”

UN expert: Saudi crown prince behind hack on Amazon CEO 

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 13 News reported Bin Salman as saying: “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” This is reminiscent of the words of the late Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, one of the Zionist founders of Israel, that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Bin Salman’s Zionism is also very clear in his bold support for US President Donald Trump’s deal of the century, which achieves Zionist goals in Palestine at the expense of Palestinian rights. He participated in the Bahrain conference, the forum where the economic side of the US deal was announced, where he gave “cover to several other Arab countries to attend the event and infuriated the Palestinians.”

US President Donald Trump looks over at Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud as they line up for the family photo during the opening day of Argentina G20 Leaders’ Summit 2018 at Costa Salguero on 30 November 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina [Daniel Jayo/Getty Images]

While discussing the issue of the current Saudi support for Israeli policies and practices in Palestine with a credible Palestinian official last week, he told me that the Palestinians had contacted the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to ask him not to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. “The Saudis have been putting pressure on us in order to relocate our embassy to Jerusalem,” replied the Brazilian leader. What more evidence of Mohammad Bin Salman’s Zionism do we need?

The founder of Friends of Zion Museum is American Evangelical Christian Mike Evans. He said, after visiting a number of the Gulf States, that, “The leaders [there] are more pro-Israel than a lot of Jews.” This was a specific reference to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, and his counterpart in the UAE, Mohammed Bin Zayed.

“All versions of Zionism lead to the same reactionary end of unbridled expansionism and continued settler colonial genocide of [the] Palestinian people,” Israeli-American writer and photographer Yoav Litvin wrote for Al Jazeera. We may well see an Israeli Embassy opened in Riyadh in the near future, and a Saudi Embassy in Tel Aviv or, more likely, Jerusalem. Is Mohammad Bin Salman a Zionist? There’s no doubt about it.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Diu, India – Boxes of sweets are being passed around as cheers and joy surround Rajeshwari Rama’s brick house, insulated with tin sheets, in the Vanakbara village of Diu, a federally-controlled island along the India-Pakistan coastline near Gujarat state in western India.

Rama’s relatives and friends are talking at the top of their voices as they celebrate the release of her husband, fisherman Mahesh Rama, from the Landhi jail in neighbouring Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi, in February this year.

Among the attendees is Laxmiben Solanki, 36, standing quietly in one corner. She does not taste the sweets. She is only marking her presence there, but remains preoccupied with thoughts of her husband, Premji Solanki.

Premji, 40, has also been in Pakistan’s Landhi jail since December 2022, along with several other Indian fishermen. Their crime: crossing a disputed border in the Arabian Sea, which divides the South Asian nuclear powers and sworn enemies, for fishing.

In February, Pakistan released 22 Indian fishermen who had been imprisoned by Pakistan’s Maritime Security Agency between April 2021 and December 2022, while they were fishing off the coast of Gujarat – also the home state of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Three of those released are from Diu, 18 from Gujarat, and the remaining one person from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Though India and Pakistan share a heavily militarised land border, their International Maritime Boundary Line in the Arabian Sea is also largely disputed, especially in a zone called Sir Creek, a 96km (60-mile) tidal estuary that separates India’s Gujarat and Pakistan’s Sindh provinces.

It is in this patch that fishermen from both India and Pakistan wander into deeper waters, often without realising they have entered foreign territory. Due to the terrain of the disputed territory, there is no border fencing, with a marshland acting as a natural boundary between the two nations.

Several years and rounds of diplomatic talks between India and Pakistan have not been able to resolve the dispute, which has even seen military tensions between them. In 1999, India shot down a Pakistani aircraft carrying 16 naval officers over the alleged violation of Indian airspace near their maritime border. The incident occurred just a month after the two countries fought a war in Kargil, a snowy district in Indian-administered Kashmir.

On March 17, India’s Ministry of External Affairs revealed that out of 194 Indian fishermen currently imprisoned in Pakistan, 123 are from Gujarat. According to the Indian government, it has 81 Pakistani fishermen in its custody. Families on both sides say their loved ones have been jailed for a crime they committed “unknowingly” – because they did not know they had ventured inside waters claimed by another country.

Trapped in debt

Pakistan released Mauji Nathubhai Bamaniya, 55, in February because his osteoporosis had gotten worse. “I still can’t believe that I am sitting in my house, in my country, with my family. My decaying bones brought me back to my homeland,” Bamaniya tells Al Jazeera in Vanakbar village.

Another fisherman, Ashok Kumar Solanki, is also back at home in Ghoghla village in Diu. He has hearing and speaking impairments and was among the 22 fishermen released on health grounds.

But it is the families of those still imprisoned in Pakistan that find themselves caught in a cycle of recurring debt and debilitating anxiety.

In another house, hidden amid palm trees in Vanakbara, Kantaben Chunilal, 60, looks with tired eyes at the dusty path leading to her home. She has been waiting for her son, Jashvant, since December 2022.

Jashvant was barely 17 when he was arrested by Pakistani forces. He was the family’s sole breadwinner.

Kantaben says she feels too ashamed to ask her relatives for more loans to fill the empty grain jars in her kitchen. She has borrowed nearly 500,000 rupees ($5,855) from several relatives for sustenance. “The government offers us a financial aid of $3 per day. It is not even half of what our men would earn,” she tells Al Jazeera.

Out of desperation, Kantaben says she sometimes randomly visits relatives during mealtimes, hoping they will accommodate her as a guest and she may save some money that day.

In the same village, Aratiben Chavda married fisherman Alpesh Chavda in 2020. Less than a year later, Alpesh was arrested by Pakistani forces while he was out fishing in the Sir Creek area.

Aratiben tells Al Jazeera their 3-year-old son Kriansh, born about four months after Alpesh’s arrest, has never seen his father. “We make him see his father’s photos, so that one day, when Alpesh comes back, my child can recognise him,” she says, sobbing.

Aratiben’s house is shaded by palm and coconut trees, insulating her and her son from India’s scorching heat. But there is no escaping the poverty that has gripped the household. Selling the refrigerator her parents had given her as a wedding gift supported her for about two months during the winter of 2023.

Aratiben and her mother-in-law, Jayaben, also sell vegetables at the local market, making about $5 to $7 on good days. But she says there are too many days in between when they are unable to afford two meals.

Indian activists and fishermen’s unions have been campaigning for the release of all the fishermen imprisoned by Pakistan.

Chhaganbhai Bamania, a social worker in Diu, points out that under Pakistani law, fishermen who stray into that country’s waters should not be sentenced for more than six months.

“But due to the hostility between India and Pakistan, citizens are caught in a crossfire for no fault of theirs. Their jail time is increased without them knowing or understanding it,” he says, adding that some Indian fishermen end up spending years behind bars.

Bamania says families of jailed fishermen have been writing to top Indian officials to plead for their release, but accuses the government of moving at a “snail’s pace” to try and address their concerns.

‘As if we were terrorists’

This pattern of arrests followed by a long wait for release is not new. Some, like 50-year-old Shyamjibhai Ramji, are repeat visitors to Pakistani jails.

Ramji was arrested three times between 2000 and 2014. When he was released for a third time from a Karachi jail, his son made him swear he would never venture into the sea, “not even in his dreams or rather, nightmares”.

“Catching fish is all I know,” he says. “We follow the stars’ movements while casting nets into the sea at night. Once, I wandered away from Okha Port, once from Porbandar Port. There are many like me who have been jailed more than once,” he tells Al Jazeera, referring to two prominent seaports in Gujarat.

Ramji says he now prefers looking at the sea from a distance to avoid revisiting the “horrors” he faced in Pakistani custody. “They would keep us separately, away from Pakistani prisoners, and kept asking us the same questions, as if we were terrorists or like we were hiding something. When we said we are vegetarians, they gave us grass and boiled water for food. It was a nightmare every day,” he says.

Shekhar Sinha, a retired Indian Navy officer, says the “greed of a larger catch drives fishermen to go beyond that imaginary line on water, often losing track of their exact position”.

“Even Pakistani fishermen are arrested in similar circumstances. Generally, they are exchanged, except for those who fail during interrogations and are unable to answer questions properly,” he tells Al Jazeera.

As efforts to free civilians on both sides of the border continue, women like Laxmiben hold onto hope, making a new promise to their children every day. Her eyes glisten with tears as she and her three teenage children – a son aged 18 and daughters who are 14 and 13 – await Premji’s release.

“I keep telling my children that, ‘Your father will return tomorrow’. But that tomorrow has not happened for four years now. My tongue is tired of lying,” she says as she holds the hands of her elder daughter, Jigna, both looking at the waves hitting the Diu port.

Beyond the waters lies Pakistan. And Premji.

Oscar Piastri’s victory put Australia on top of the Formula One world championship for the first time since 2010.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri cruised to victory in the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to move atop the driver’s championship after five races on the season.

The 24-year-old became the first driver this season to win while not starting on the pole, and he comfortably finished the race ahead of runner-up Max Verstappen of Red Bull, who was given a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage in the opening lap of the race on Sunday.

Charles Leclerc finished third to give Ferrari its first podium of the season. Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris finished fourth, while Mercedes’s George Russell finished fifth and Kimi Antonelli was sixth.

With his third victory of the season, and second consecutive after winning at Bahrain last week, Piastri becomes the first driver from Australia to lead the drivers’ championship standings since Mark Webber in 2010. It is the first time Piastri has led the drivers’ standings in his F1 career.

Piastri, who began the race from second position on the starting grid, ultimately took the lead on the 6.1km (3.8-mile) track after Verstappen served his five-second penalty during a pit stop on Lap 22. He finished off his fifth career victory in his 51st start without much of a challenge from Verstappen, crossing the finish line 2.84 seconds ahead of the reigning world champion.

In addition to 2025 race victories in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Piastri also won the second race of the season in China. McLaren has won four of the five races after Norris won the season-opening race in Australia.

Verstappen’s runner-up finish came after he won the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix in two of the last three years.

In the drivers’ championship, Piastri has 99 points to Norris’s 89 and Verstappen’s 87. Champions McLaren stretched their lead over Mercedes in the constructors’ standings to 77 points.

Reports come after Hegseth attracted scrutiny last month over discussions of military plans in another group chat.

United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared details about planned bombing raids on Yemen in a second Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, US media has reported.

The reports come after Hegseth attracted scrutiny last month when the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine revealed that the defence chief had shared details about upcoming air strikes on Houthi rebels in a Signal group chat that the journalist had been accidentally included in.

Hegseth’s discussions in the second group chat similarly involved planned strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, The New York Times and CNN reported on Sunday, citing multiple unnamed sources.

The information shared by Hegseth in the second chat included “flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen,” The Times reported, citing “people with knowledge of the chat”.

Hegseth set up the second group chat before his confirmation as defence secretary to coordinate with members of his personal and professional inner circle, the outlets said.

Hegseth’s brother, Phil, and his personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, are both employed at the Defense Department, but his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not.

The circumstances that led to the disclosure of military information in the first Signal group chat, which included top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration including Vice President JD Vance and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, is currently being investigated by the Pentagon’s acting inspector general.

The latest controversy involving Hegseth’s leadership follows a week of personnel upheaval at the Pentagon.

Four members of Hegseth’s inner circle, including his former press secretary John Ullyot, have been removed over the last week amid a widening probe into leaks of information.

On Sunday, Ullyot said that the Pentagon was in “disarray” and “total chaos” under the defence chief’s leadership.

“The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot wrote in an opinion piece published by Politico Magazine.

Ullyot announced his resignation on Wednesday, following the departures of Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg; Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff; and Dan Caldwell, one of Hegseth’s aides.

In a statement on Sunday, Carroll, Selnick and Caldwell said they had been slandered and subjected to “baseless attacks” ahead of their dismissal.

“All three of us served our country honorably in uniform – for two of us, this included deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, based on our collective service, we understand the importance of information security and worked every day to protect it,” the three men said in the statement.

“At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with.”

Last week, a prominent Saudi Sheikh, Mohammed Al-Issa, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which signalled the end of the Nazi Holocaust. Although dozens of Muslim scholars have visited the site, where about one million Jews were killed during World War Two, according to the Auschwitz Memorial Centre’s press office, Al-Issa is the most senior Muslim religious leader to do so.

Visiting Auschwitz is not a problem for a Muslim; Islam orders Muslims to reject unjustified killing of any human being, no matter what their faith is. Al-Issa is a senior ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), who apparently cares little for the sanctity of human life, though, and the visit to Auschwitz has very definite political connotations beyond any Islamic context.

By sending Al-Issa to the camp, Bin Salman wanted to show his support for Israel, which exploits the Holocaust for geopolitical colonial purposes. “The Israeli government decided that it alone was permitted to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz [in modern day Poland] in 1945,” wrote journalist Richard Silverstein recently when he commented on the gathering of world leaders in Jerusalem for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Holocaust event.

READ: Next up, a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem 

Bin Salman uses Al Issa for such purposes, as if to demonstrate his own Zionist credentials. For example, the head of the Makkah-based Muslim World League is leading rapprochement efforts with Evangelical Christians who are, in the US at least, firm Zionists in their backing for the state of Israel. Al-Issa has called for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem in what would, in effect, be a Zionist troika.

Zionism is not a religion, and there are many non-Jewish Zionists who desire or support the establishment of a Jewish state in occupied Palestine. The definition of Zionism does not mention the religion of its supporters, and Israeli writer Sheri Oz, is just one author who insists that non-Jews can be Zionists.

Mohammad Bin Salman and Netanyahu – Cartoon [Tasnimnews.com/Wikipedia]

We should not be shocked, therefore, to see a Zionist Muslim leader in these trying times. It is reasonable to say that Bin Salman’s grandfather and father were Zionists, as close friends of Zionist leaders. Logic suggests that Bin Salman comes from a Zionist dynasty.

This has been evident from his close relationship with Zionists and positive approaches to the Israeli occupation and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, calling it “[the Jews’] ancestral homeland”. This means that he has no issue with the ethnic cleansing of almost 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, during which thousands were killed and their homes demolished in order to establish the Zionist state of Israel.

“The ‘Jewish state’ claim is how Zionism has tried to mask its intrinsic Apartheid, under the veil of a supposed ‘self-determination of the Jewish people’,” wrote Israeli blogger Jonathan Ofir in Mondoweiss in 2018, “and for the Palestinians it has meant their dispossession.”

As the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Bin Salman has imprisoned dozens of Palestinians, including representatives of Hamas. In doing so he is serving Israel’s interests. Moreover, he has blamed the Palestinians for not making peace with the occupation state. Bin Salman “excoriated the Palestinians for missing key opportunities,” wrote Danial Benjamin in Moment magazine. He pointed out that the prince’s father, King Salman, has played the role of counterweight by saying that Saudi Arabia “permanently stands by Palestine and its people’s right to an independent state with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.”

UN expert: Saudi crown prince behind hack on Amazon CEO 

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 13 News reported Bin Salman as saying: “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” This is reminiscent of the words of the late Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, one of the Zionist founders of Israel, that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Bin Salman’s Zionism is also very clear in his bold support for US President Donald Trump’s deal of the century, which achieves Zionist goals in Palestine at the expense of Palestinian rights. He participated in the Bahrain conference, the forum where the economic side of the US deal was announced, where he gave “cover to several other Arab countries to attend the event and infuriated the Palestinians.”

US President Donald Trump looks over at Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud as they line up for the family photo during the opening day of Argentina G20 Leaders’ Summit 2018 at Costa Salguero on 30 November 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina [Daniel Jayo/Getty Images]

While discussing the issue of the current Saudi support for Israeli policies and practices in Palestine with a credible Palestinian official last week, he told me that the Palestinians had contacted the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to ask him not to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. “The Saudis have been putting pressure on us in order to relocate our embassy to Jerusalem,” replied the Brazilian leader. What more evidence of Mohammad Bin Salman’s Zionism do we need?

The founder of Friends of Zion Museum is American Evangelical Christian Mike Evans. He said, after visiting a number of the Gulf States, that, “The leaders [there] are more pro-Israel than a lot of Jews.” This was a specific reference to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, and his counterpart in the UAE, Mohammed Bin Zayed.

“All versions of Zionism lead to the same reactionary end of unbridled expansionism and continued settler colonial genocide of [the] Palestinian people,” Israeli-American writer and photographer Yoav Litvin wrote for Al Jazeera. We may well see an Israeli Embassy opened in Riyadh in the near future, and a Saudi Embassy in Tel Aviv or, more likely, Jerusalem. Is Mohammad Bin Salman a Zionist? There’s no doubt about it.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

United States President Donald Trump’s administration announced a major military offensive against the Houthis a few weeks ago.

The United States has carried out more air strikes in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, after targeting Kamaran Island and Marib governorate earlier, Houthi media outlets report.

No details on casualties have been provided yet.

In Sanaa, two US airstrikes targeted the area of Attan, which has been controlled by the rebel movement since 2014. US airstrikes also reportedly targeted a sanitation project in the Asir area, as well as the Furwah neighbourhood and a popular market in the Shoub district, according to Houthi media.

The strikes on Sunday come a day after the US launched 13 strikes on Hodeidah’s port and airport, and three days after its deadliest attack to date targeted the Ras Isa port, also in Hodeidah, killing at least 80 people and wounding more than 150.

Houthi-held areas in Yemen have been subjected to near-daily air strikes by Washington. Civilians have been targeted, families wiped out, military sites destroyed and soldiers killed.

More than 200 people have been killed since US President Donald Trump’s administration announced a major military offensive against the Houthis in March. It said the air strikes are aimed at forcing the group to stop threatening ships sailing on the Red Sea on a route crucial to international trade.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have reportedly launched more than 100 attacks on vessels they say are linked to Israel in response to Israel’s war on Gaza and in solidarity with Palestinians.

Houthi attacks have paralysed shipping through the Suez Canal, a vital waterway through which approximately 12 percent of global shipping traffic normally passes, forcing many companies to resort to costly alternative routes around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

The Houthis halted attacks on shipping lanes during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza earlier this year. But they vowed to resume strikes after Israel renewed its assault on the besieged enclave last month.

The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah or “supporters of God”, emerged in the 1990s but rose to prominence in 2014 when they seized Sanaa and forced President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee the country.

Defending champions Real Madrid net an injury-time win in 1-0 victory against Athletic Club to keep pace with Barcelona.

Federico Valverde’s superb 93rd-minute strike kept Real Madrid on Barcelona’s tail in Spanish football’s title race, earning the champions a 1-0 win over Athletic Club.

Madrid stayed four points behind Barca after Valverde smashed into the top corner on Sunday with a sliced, swerving effort.

After Champions League elimination by Arsenal, it looked like Madrid were set for another devastating result until the Uruguay international’s stoppage-time intervention.

Athletic, who are based in Bilbao and reached the Europa League semifinals on Thursday by beating Rangers, rotated heavily.

Despite that, the Basque side proved a hard nut for Madrid to crack, especially with their top goalscorer Kylian Mbappe both suspended and recovering from an ankle problem.

The forward was whistled by some fans for his failure to help the team overcome Arsenal in the Champions League quarterfinals in midweek when he was shown watching the game on the stadium screens.

Vinicius, who was previously criticised by coach Carlo Ancelotti for a lack of defensive work ethic, was running hard on the left, which fans at the Santiago Bernabeu appreciated.

The Brazilian has struggled for form at times this season, but was Madrid’s brightest player against Athletic, giving Unai Nunez a difficult night.

Madrid played with intensity after their European elimination, trying to keep La Liga in their sights after Barcelona made a late comeback to beat Celta Vigo on Saturday.

Rodrygo Goes came close early in the second half before Athletic goalkeeper Unai Simon saved from Eduardo Camavinga.

The hosts began to push Athletic deeper and started to create better chances.

Vinicius bent a delicious cross with the outside of his boot into the six-yard box for Jude Bellingham to meet, but Simon made an excellent save to tip over his header.

Federico Valverde fired narrowly wide of the near post, and Vinicius did find the net, but Endrick was offside in the build-up.

Bellingham appealed for a penalty after going down softly in the area, and then fired over from close range in the final stages.

It was the kind of chance the England international managed to turn into late match-winning goals last season as he inspired Madrid to La Liga and Champions League glory.

Instead, it was Valverde who took up that role with a sublime blast that left Simon with no chance.

The victory offers Madrid hope of salvaging their season and a morale boost ahead of next weekend’s Copa del Rey final against Barcelona.

The Israeli military has released details of an investigation into its own killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and aid workers in Gaza last month, saying its code of ethics was not violated and only one soldier is dismissed, in an attack that sparked outrage in the international community.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the Israeli rights organisation Breaking the Silence rejected the findings of the Israeli probe on Sunday.

PRCS’s president told Al-Araby TV that the Israeli narrative on the killings in Rafah was “contradictory”.

“It is incomprehensible why the occupation soldiers buried the bodies of the paramedics in a criminal manner,” Younis al-Khatib said.

Al-Khatib added that the Israeli army communicated with the paramedics before killing them and that the evidence – including a video showing their ambulances flashing emergency lights – proved “the falsity of the occupation’s narrative regarding the limited visibility at the site”.

“An independent and impartial investigation must be conducted by a UN body,” he said.

PRCS, which had medics killed by Israel in the incident, also denounced the Israeli report as “full of lies” on Sunday. “It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the organisation, told the AFP news agency.

The PRCS said last week that it received confirmation from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that one of its medics who was missing is being held by Israel.

🚨Urgent: We have been informed by the International Committee of the Red Cross that PRCS medic Assad Al-Nsasrah is being held by the Israeli occupation authorities. His fate had remained unknown since he was targeted along with other PRCS medics in #Rafah.
📢We call on the… pic.twitter.com/l0oOxujS8G

— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) April 13, 2025

The Israeli army on Sunday claimed that six of the aid workers who were killed and buried in a shallow mass grave along with their ambulances were Hamas “terrorists”, without providing any evidence.

It admitted its probe detected a series of “professional failures”, including partial and inaccurate reporting by the commanding officers in the field invading southern Gaza’s Rafah.

The deputy commander of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion will be dismissed, while the commanding officer of the 14th Brigade is to receive a reprimand.

The examination also found “no evidence to support claims of execution or that any of the deceased were bound before or after the shooting”, despite the testimonies and the evidence.

The Israeli military had initially claimed that the ambulances and aid workers were not clearly marked as first responders and approached its troops “suspiciously”.

A mobile phone video recorded by one of the killed aid workers that was obtained by the New York Times showed that the crew were clearly marked and visible to Israeli forces, and were killed by Israeli fire that lasted several minutes.

United Nations and Palestinian officials later found the mass grave and the bulldozed ambulances and bodies after Israeli authorities granted access to the area of the mostly destroyed city of Rafah bordering Egypt.

‘Another day, another cover-up’

The Israeli anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence said the military investigation is “riddled with contradictions, vague phrasing, and selective details”.

“Not every lie has a video to expose it, but this report doesn’t even attempt to engage with the truth,” the group said. “Another day, another cover-up. More innocent lives taken, with no accountability.”

But far-right voices in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believe the army is going too far in punishing the soldiers.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s ultranationalist national security minister, said the decision to dismiss the deputy commander was a “grave mistake” that must be reversed.

“Our combat soldiers, who are sacrificing their lives in Gaza, deserve our full support,” he said.

‘Report invites many questions’

Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Nice told Al Jazeera that the findings of the probe raise questions about the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza and the thoroughness of the investigative process.

“It’s a pretty surprising document. It’s also a document that invites many questions that it will be difficult, I suspect, for the [Israeli military] to answer,” Nice said in a television interview.

“For example, [there is] the proposition that six of these people were Hamas, presumably members of Hamas on active [military] service, not people who might have been associated with Hamas in some way. No documentary evidence at all is identified [for that].”

Israel has a track record of denying accusations of wrongdoing and contradicting its own earlier statements.

Past investigations have exonerated the armed forces or placed the blame on a single individual without broader repercussions.

The UN accused the Israeli military of being responsible for the killing of the 15 aid workers, along with the killing of a Bulgarian UN staff member and wounding of six other foreign staff in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah last month.

The organisation has been forced to significantly cut its staff in Gaza as the war’s death toll continues to mount.

The Israeli military has said “professional failures” led to the killing of 15 emergency workers in Gaza last month.

An inquiry into the incident by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) found a series of failings, including an “operational misunderstanding” and a “breach of orders”.

The deputy commander of the unit involved has been dismissed “for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief”.

A spokeswoman for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said the report was “invalid” as it “justifies and shifts the responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different”.

Fourteen emergency workers and a UN worker were killed on 23 March after a convoy of PRCS ambulances, a UN car and a fire truck came under fire by the Israeli military.

In a statement, the IDF said its troops opened fire believing they were facing a threat from enemy forces.

The IDF said its investigation found six of the casualties were Hamas members, and rejected that there had been summary executions.

In an on-the-record briefing, Major General Yoav Har-Even – who investigated the incident – told journalists that the Israeli military maintained that six of the emergency workers were Hamas operatives and said they would later be named.

The report said the incident took place in what it called a “hostile and dangerous combat zone”, and that the commander on the ground perceived an immediate and tangible threat after vehicles approached rapidly.

It blamed “poor night visibility”, which the IDF said meant the commander did not identify the vehicles as ambulances.

Another commanding officer “will receive a reprimand” for “his overall responsibility for the incident”, the report added.

Israel had originally claimed troops opened fire because the convoy approached “suspiciously” in darkness without headlights or flashing lights. It said movement of the vehicles had not been previously co-ordinated or agreed with the army.

But it later said that account was “mistaken” after a video found on the mobile phone of a medic who was killed showed the vehicles with their lights on and their emergency signals flashing.

The footage shows the vehicles pulling up on the road when shooting begins just before dawn.

The video continues for more than five minutes, with the paramedic saying his last prayers before the voices of Israeli soldiers are heard approaching the vehicles.

It also shows the vehicles were clearly marked and the paramedics wearing reflective hi-vis uniform.

The bodies of the 15 dead workers were buried in sand. They were not uncovered until a week after the incident because international agencies, including the UN, could not organise safe passage to the area or locate the spot.

The IDF also confirmed it was holding a PRCS medic it had detained following the incident. They did not confirm his name, but the International Committee of the Red Cross has previously named him as Assad al-Nassasra.

The Red Crescent and several other international organisations have previously called for an independent investigation into the incident.

The IDF’s decision to fire a commander and discipline another senior officer is not unheard of – the military dismissed two officers and took action against others after seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in April of last year.

Israel launched its first major operation in Rafah in May 2024, leaving large parts of it in ruins. Tens of thousands of people returned to what was left of their homes in the city during a recent two-month-long ceasefire.

Israel renewed its offensive in Gaza on 18 March after the first phase of the ceasefire deal came to an end and negotiations on a second phase of the deal stalled.

Israel launched its campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 51,201 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Last week, a prominent Saudi Sheikh, Mohammed Al-Issa, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which signalled the end of the Nazi Holocaust. Although dozens of Muslim scholars have visited the site, where about one million Jews were killed during World War Two, according to the Auschwitz Memorial Centre’s press office, Al-Issa is the most senior Muslim religious leader to do so.

Visiting Auschwitz is not a problem for a Muslim; Islam orders Muslims to reject unjustified killing of any human being, no matter what their faith is. Al-Issa is a senior ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), who apparently cares little for the sanctity of human life, though, and the visit to Auschwitz has very definite political connotations beyond any Islamic context.

By sending Al-Issa to the camp, Bin Salman wanted to show his support for Israel, which exploits the Holocaust for geopolitical colonial purposes. “The Israeli government decided that it alone was permitted to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz [in modern day Poland] in 1945,” wrote journalist Richard Silverstein recently when he commented on the gathering of world leaders in Jerusalem for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Holocaust event.

READ: Next up, a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem 

Bin Salman uses Al Issa for such purposes, as if to demonstrate his own Zionist credentials. For example, the head of the Makkah-based Muslim World League is leading rapprochement efforts with Evangelical Christians who are, in the US at least, firm Zionists in their backing for the state of Israel. Al-Issa has called for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem in what would, in effect, be a Zionist troika.

Zionism is not a religion, and there are many non-Jewish Zionists who desire or support the establishment of a Jewish state in occupied Palestine. The definition of Zionism does not mention the religion of its supporters, and Israeli writer Sheri Oz, is just one author who insists that non-Jews can be Zionists.

Mohammad Bin Salman and Netanyahu – Cartoon [Tasnimnews.com/Wikipedia]

We should not be shocked, therefore, to see a Zionist Muslim leader in these trying times. It is reasonable to say that Bin Salman’s grandfather and father were Zionists, as close friends of Zionist leaders. Logic suggests that Bin Salman comes from a Zionist dynasty.

This has been evident from his close relationship with Zionists and positive approaches to the Israeli occupation and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, calling it “[the Jews’] ancestral homeland”. This means that he has no issue with the ethnic cleansing of almost 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, during which thousands were killed and their homes demolished in order to establish the Zionist state of Israel.

“The ‘Jewish state’ claim is how Zionism has tried to mask its intrinsic Apartheid, under the veil of a supposed ‘self-determination of the Jewish people’,” wrote Israeli blogger Jonathan Ofir in Mondoweiss in 2018, “and for the Palestinians it has meant their dispossession.”

As the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Bin Salman has imprisoned dozens of Palestinians, including representatives of Hamas. In doing so he is serving Israel’s interests. Moreover, he has blamed the Palestinians for not making peace with the occupation state. Bin Salman “excoriated the Palestinians for missing key opportunities,” wrote Danial Benjamin in Moment magazine. He pointed out that the prince’s father, King Salman, has played the role of counterweight by saying that Saudi Arabia “permanently stands by Palestine and its people’s right to an independent state with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.”

UN expert: Saudi crown prince behind hack on Amazon CEO 

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 13 News reported Bin Salman as saying: “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” This is reminiscent of the words of the late Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, one of the Zionist founders of Israel, that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Bin Salman’s Zionism is also very clear in his bold support for US President Donald Trump’s deal of the century, which achieves Zionist goals in Palestine at the expense of Palestinian rights. He participated in the Bahrain conference, the forum where the economic side of the US deal was announced, where he gave “cover to several other Arab countries to attend the event and infuriated the Palestinians.”

US President Donald Trump looks over at Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud as they line up for the family photo during the opening day of Argentina G20 Leaders’ Summit 2018 at Costa Salguero on 30 November 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina [Daniel Jayo/Getty Images]

While discussing the issue of the current Saudi support for Israeli policies and practices in Palestine with a credible Palestinian official last week, he told me that the Palestinians had contacted the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to ask him not to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. “The Saudis have been putting pressure on us in order to relocate our embassy to Jerusalem,” replied the Brazilian leader. What more evidence of Mohammad Bin Salman’s Zionism do we need?

The founder of Friends of Zion Museum is American Evangelical Christian Mike Evans. He said, after visiting a number of the Gulf States, that, “The leaders [there] are more pro-Israel than a lot of Jews.” This was a specific reference to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, and his counterpart in the UAE, Mohammed Bin Zayed.

“All versions of Zionism lead to the same reactionary end of unbridled expansionism and continued settler colonial genocide of [the] Palestinian people,” Israeli-American writer and photographer Yoav Litvin wrote for Al Jazeera. We may well see an Israeli Embassy opened in Riyadh in the near future, and a Saudi Embassy in Tel Aviv or, more likely, Jerusalem. Is Mohammad Bin Salman a Zionist? There’s no doubt about it.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Liverpool have moved one win away from sealing England’s Premier League title as substitute Trent Alexander-Arnold secured a 1-0 victory at Leicester City, which condemned their hosts to relegation.

Leicester, needing to beat the leaders to stave off relegation for a few more days, were holding their own on Sunday. But Alexander-Arnold fired home in the 76th minute after the ball came to him following a goalmouth scramble.

Liverpool could be crowned champions on Wednesday should Arsenal lose at home to Crystal Palace.

If the Gunners avoid defeat, Arne Slot’s men have the chance to seal the deal when Tottenham visit Anfield next Sunday.

Leicester have not scored a single goal at home since December as nine consecutive defeats at the King Power have taken Ruud van Nistelrooy’s men down.

A Liverpool cruise seemed in store when Mohamed Salah hit both posts with a glorious chance inside the first two minutes.

But after storming clear of the chasing pack in Slot’s early months in charge to build a near-unassailable lead, Liverpool have slowed in recent weeks as the finish line approaches.

Wilfred Ndidi came close to ending Leicester’s barren run with a low strike that came back off the post.

Liverpool struggled to create from open play in what remained of the first half.

Ibrahima Konate came closest to breaking the deadlock when Ndidi hooked clear his goal-bound header from a corner.

The visitors upped the tempo at the start of the second period. Kostas Tsimikas should have done better when he fired straight at Mads Hermansen.

At the other end, Leicester did finally have the ball in the net, but Patson Daka had fouled Alisson Becker before Conor Coady headed into an unguarded net.

Slot introduced Alexander-Arnold for the final 20 minutes on his return from a five-week absence due to an ankle injury.

The right-back took just five minutes to score his 23rd and potentially last goal for his boyhood club.

Salah and Diogo Jota somehow contrived to hit the woodwork rather than the net from point-blank range as Leicester struggled to clear a corner.

The loose ball broke to Alexander-Arnold, whose shot went straight through the grasp of Hermansen.

Alexander-Arnold ripped off his shirt in a wild celebration in front of the Liverpool fans.

Unlike Salah and captain Virgil van Dijk, who have signed new contracts to remain at Liverpool for the next two years, the England international still seems set to depart after reportedly agreeing to the terms of a free transfer move to Real Madrid.

Alexander-Arnold refused to talk about his Liverpool future when speaking to Sky Sports after the game.

“These days are always special, scoring goals, winning games, being close to winning titles – they are special moments that will live with me forever,” he said. “And I’m glad to be part of it.”

Leicester, meanwhile, have had a season to forget. Champions of England just nine years ago, the Foxes have found life back in the top flight far too much of a step up in class after romping to the Championship title last season.

Defender Coady told Sky Sports that the players were “devastated” by the relegation.

“If we look at today, I thought we played and we nullified Liverpool quite well, they’re a world-class side,” he said.

“But if we look back at the season, it hasn’t been anywhere near good enough from a club point of view. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror.”

Leicester join Southampton, whose relegation was confirmed with a record seven games to go, in an immediate return to the second tier.

Ipswich, who are 15 points adrift with five games to go, are set to follow as for the second consecutive season all three promoted sides will fail to avoid the drop.

Earlier on Sunday, Arsenal cantered to a 4-0 victory over Ipswich Town, with Leandro Trossard scoring twice and the hosts’ Leif Davis sent off for a dangerous tackle on Bukayo Saka.

Meanwhile, Manchester United slumped to a 15th Premier League loss of the season as Wolverhampton Wanderers snatched a 1-0 win at Old Trafford thanks to Pablo Sarabia’s late free kick on Sunday.

Wolves secured their place in the Premier League with their fifth consecutive Premier League under Vitor Pereira lifting them up to 15th and level on points with United, who stay 14th on goal difference.

Chelsea moved up to fifth by rallying to beat Fulham 2-1 with two late goals.

Palestinian Christians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem have marked a second sombre Easter under punishing conditions and Israel’s war on Gaza.

In the Gaza Strip, where no food or aid has been allowed in by the Israeli military for nearly 50 days, people observed Easter on Sunday at the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City amid death and destruction.

Easter celebrations were limited to religious rituals as families cancelled other gatherings fearing more bombs would be dropped by Israeli warplanes, which killed dozens of people in the besieged enclave on Sunday.

Israeli forces bombed the Saint Porphyrius compound in October 2023, just days after the war began in the aftermath of Hamas-led attacks on Israel. Israel said it was targeting “terrorists”.

That attack killed at least 18 displaced Palestinians who had sought refuge in the church. More than 51,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army since the start of the war.

During a brief appearance before thousands of Catholic pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square for the Vatican’s open-air Easter Mass, Pope Francis renewed his call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

He also called on the Palestinian armed group Hamas and other groups to release the remaining captives held in Gaza.

Heavy restrictions in occupied West Bank

Israeli authorities prevented many Christians, including Palestinians, from accessing holy sites for Easter in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli police clashed with Christian worshippers and even a priest as they tried to access the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in occupied East Jerusalem.

The Old City of Jerusalem was in effect turned by Israeli authorities into a military outpost, said Fathi Nimer, Palestine policy fellow at the Al-Shabaka think tank.

“Some would say that there are now more soldiers, security and police officers than worshippers around the Holy Sepulchre,” he told Al Jazeera from Ramallah in the West Bank on Sunday.

“There are dozens of checkpoints within the city, and these limitations have not only impacted Palestinian Christians from the West Bank but also from Jerusalem itself and within the 1948 territories.”

Nimer said people were beaten, and Israeli officers and onlookers directed insults and slurs towards Christians.

Only about 6,000 Palestinians from the West Bank received permits to attend Easter services this year, and even the representative of the Vatican in Palestine was denied entry into the church.

Nimer said a tightening Israeli chokehold over holy places in the past few years has led to a dwindling number of worshippers of Palestinian origin.

“This is all part of the wider war on Palestinian culture and identity. Israel is basically saying they have an exclusive claim to Jerusalem and all of Palestine,” he said.

‘I don’t have a permit to go as a pastor’

Mitri Raheb, a Palestinian pastor and theologian and founder and president of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, concurred that current Israeli restrictions are among the toughest.

“I myself as a pastor don’t have a permit to go for the Holy Week, which is the most important week for Christians throughout the year because Jesus was crucified and risen in Jerusalem,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The Palestinian-Christian community that has been there for 2,000 years cannot go there to celebrate and mark this where it all happened.”

Raheb said incitement against Palestinian Christians, especially clergy members, has also been on the rise with dozens of incidents of Israeli settler attacks reported this year.

“One of the first things you read about in church about Jesus is that he was like a lamb led to the slaughter. But when you hear this today as Palestinian Christians, you think it’s our whole people being led to slaughter, considering what is happening in Gaza.”

Israeli settlers and politicians, backed by armed police and soldiers, have also been increasingly storming the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to perform Talmudic rituals and challenge its status quo.

Non-Muslims are not allowed to worship at the compound of Islam’s third holiest site, which is located in East Jerusalem, as part of the status quo agreement that the Israeli government claims it remains committed to.

Pope Tawadros II, head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, strongly condemned the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

“Palestinians are subject to the most horrific forms of injustice in their daily lives amid the destruction of their homeland,” he told state television during Easter celebrations.

Traders say Syria has largely been relying on overland imports from neighbours this year.

A ship carrying wheat has arrived in Syria’s Latakia port, the first such delivery since former President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December, the government said, as it pushes to boost an economy ravaged by nearly 14 years of ruinous civil war.

Traders say Syria has this year been largely relying on overland imports from neighbours.

Officials of the new government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa say that while imports of wheat and other basics are not subject to sanctions from the United States or United Nations, challenges in securing financing for trade deals have deterred global suppliers from selling to Syria.

The Syrian General Authority for Land and Sea Borders said in a statement that the ship carried 6,600 tonnes of wheat. It did not identify the nationality or destination of the boat, but one regional commodity trader told the Reuters news agency it was from Russia.

Russia and Iran were Syria’s primary military and economic backers under al-Assad. They previously provided most of Syria’s wheat and oil products, but stopped after opposition fighters swept through the country in triumph and al-Assad fled to Moscow.

Syria’s border authority called the shipment “a clear indication of the start of a new phase of economic recovery in the country”, adding that it should pave the way for more arrivals of vital supplies.

Al-Sharaa’s government is sharply focused on economic recovery after 14 years of conflict and has also been making efforts to open travel routes to the country.

Most international airlines suspended operations to and from Damascus in 2012 amid the Syrian government’s violent crackdown on protests that began in 2011 and the subsequent civil war that drew in multiple outside actors.

However, in January 2024, several airlines resumed service at Damascus International Airport following an announcement by the Syrian Civil Aviation Authority that international flights would be accepted.

On Saturday, a Syrian passenger flight departed on Sunday for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), marking the resumption of air travel between the two countries.

A UN official said on Saturday that Syria’s authorities should also begin the process of economic recovery, without waiting for Western sanctions imposed under al-Assad’s rule to be lifted.

“Waiting for sanctions to be lifted leads nowhere,” Abdallah Al Dardari, the regional chief for Arab states at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told the AFP news agency in an interview in Damascus.

Al Dardari said this process should include “projects… directly affecting citizens”, the provision of services by civil society, particularly in education, and “the rapid improvement of public services”.

“People need to feel the improvement quickly … especially in such a difficult period,” he said. “With a clear vision and well-defined priorities, once the sanctions are lifted, funding will flow into Syria.”

Some countries, including the US, have said they would wait to see how the new authorities exercise their power and ensure human rights before lifting sanctions, opting instead for targeted and temporary exemptions.

Russia and Ukraine have carried out the largest prisoner exchange since the start of the war, swapping more than 500 prisoners in total. It comes as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary ‘Easter’ ceasefire, but Ukraine says the attacks haven’t stopped.

Mohy Omer, at the National Democratic Institute, analyses Sudan’s war two years on. With no clear victory seemingly possible by either side, will negotiations be possible?

On April 7, United States President Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a second time since his inauguration. Speaking to the media, Trump doubled down on his earlier comments about the Gaza Strip, describing it as an “incredible piece of important real estate”.

Trump also repeated his suggestion that the Palestinians should leave the Strip “to different countries” and claimed that people “really do love that vision. … A lot of people like my concept.”

Days later, about 70 percent of Gaza had been turned into a “no-go zone” for Palestinians. Confirming that Israel is working “in accordance with the US president’s vision, which we seek to realise”, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz declared Israel’s intention to “seize” more territory, adding that “wilful passage” will be given to Palestinians who want to leave.

It is by now clear that Trump’s statements on Gaza have had the effect of legitimising a longstanding Israeli vision of ethnic cleansing of the Strip. What the US president calls “my concept” is in fact not his at all.

Over decades of Israeli occupation and colonisation of the Gaza Strip, there have been multiple plans to empty out or disperse the Palestinian population in a bid to secure full control over this part of Palestine. The power of colonial practices has also been tested. For example, to draw Israeli settlers and thereby help transform Gaza’s demographics, the Strip was at one point even promoted as the “Hawaii of Israel”.

Left out of Israeli war aims in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Gaza Strip emerged out of the 1949 Armistice Agreements under Egyptian military rule. Constituting only a small part of what until then had been the Gaza District of Palestine, the Gaza Strip was home to two groups of Palestinians: the local population and refugees – people who had been forced off their land as Israel expanded its territorial reach during the war.

As the guns fell silent, the Gaza Strip became known in Israeli policy circles as the “job unfinished” – a slice of land next to the Egyptian border that Israel’s leaders would like to control, preferably without its Palestinian population.

Israel’s first attempt to take Gaza by force occurred in 1956. But under pressure from US President Dwight Eisenhower, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had no choice but to withdraw and put an end to the Israeli occupation. The botched attempt taught Israel an important lesson: To redraw the map of the Middle East and to make its territorial expansionist agenda a success, Israel needed American support and approval.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli War was far more successful in this regard. Through conquest and occupation, the Gaza Strip was brought under direct Israeli rule. This opened the door to revitalise “transfer” – the forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Seen as both necessary and permissible or, in Ben-Gurion’s words, “an important humane and Zionist idea”, transfer was recognised as an effective tool to advance Zionist colonisation of Palestine.

In the following years, as noted by Palestinian historian Nur Masalha, transfer acquired different labels. These included  “population exchange”, “Arab return to Arabia”, “voluntary emigration” and “rehabilitation” with different Israeli governments taking different approaches.

One approach was Defence Minister Moshe Dayan’s “open bridges”, which allowed Palestinians in Gaza to leave for other countries in search of work. Another was to open offices in Gaza’s refugee camps to organise and pay for travel and passports for Palestinians willing to “voluntarily migrate”, which in effect turned the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs into a “global travel agency”. Regardless of the approach, Israel’s policy objective remained the same: to create a drive in Palestinians to leave the Strip.

“I want them all to go, even if they go to the moon,” Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said. Expressing Israeli frustration, Eshkol articulated the feeling of being stuck with what was considered the problem of Gaza. After all, only the Palestinian population there – and the sizeable refugee population in particular – stood in the way of full Israeli annexation.

In response to Israel’s Gaza “dilemma”, its politicians also looked for more comprehensive solutions. This led to an almost continuous flow of plans for the “rehabilitation” of Palestinians outside the Strip. Starting immediately after the 1967 war, a variety of potential destinations came up. These included the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, Iraq, or even as far afield as Canada and Australia.

Despite Israeli efforts and elaboration of plans – and much to the disappointment of Israel’s decision-makers – the initiatives came to naught as the number of Palestinians leaving the Strip remained limited. And given other considerations, including moral, legal and diplomatic ones, the plans to displace a large number of Palestinians from Gaza were left in the drawer.

But as Israeli politicians turned to examine their menu of choices in the post-October 7, 2023, era, “voluntary emigration”, or forced displacement, re-emerged. Gone was any sensitivity to international opinion and potential reactions. Instead, Trump has led the way, making statements on Gaza that in effect turn decades of Zionist ideology and practice into official American policy.

By means of his policy stance, the US president has legitimised a longstanding Israeli vision of ethnic cleansing in the Strip. In the process, his articulation of policy has moved ever closer to the strand of Revisionist Zionism that viewed Palestinians as aliens in their own land and, therefore, “transferable”.

In arguing that Palestinians need to go to make Israel and the region safe, Trump has departed from the internationally shared principle that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – as elsewhere in the occupied Palestinian territory – have legitimate rights to self-determination in their land. As such, Trump brings to mind Revisionist Zionist ideologue Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who argued that “when the Arab claim is confronted with our Jewish demand to be saved, it is like the claims of appetite vs the claims of starvation” with “transfer” inextricably linked to Jewish rights to the land.

The cynical promises of a better future for people who are left with nothing but their land after a brutal war of erasure and plausible genocide must be taken seriously. The legitimacy Trump has given to Israeli plans poses a threat in the here and now, but it could also outlast his presidency.

That is because he has offered US presidential sanction of ethnic cleansing as an acceptable tool. This leaves the door open for Israel – in the near or distant future – to pursue “transfer”, “rehabilitation” and “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians, whether in Gaza or the West Bank.

Furthermore, the American president has repeatedly communicated US support for illegal land seizures and colonisation. Suggesting Gaza (and Greenland) could become “US territory”, he has reintroduced and validated ideas that most leaders of the world had put on the scrap heap of history.

Finally, Trump has shifted the US position away from the premise of working towards a two-state solution. In fact, considering his statements, there appears to be a fundamental disregard for Palestinians in Gaza and their collective right to self-determination.

Looking at current US policy against historical record, Trump’s “Riviera of the Middle East” seems a curious combination of Zionist ethnic cleansing under the “transfer” model and the colonial ideal of the “Hawaii of Israel”.

It is no wonder Trump has been cheered on by Israeli leaders as he calls for the forced depopulation of the Gaza Strip and its transformation into fully fledged colonial territory – annexed or otherwise. After all, Trump’s ideas follow in the footsteps of Zionist leaders from Ben-Gurion to Netanyahu, under whom transfer has been the preferred but diplomatically and legally challenging option all along.

With Trump going out in front, such challenges could turn into tomorrow’s opportunities. It remains the task of other states to stand up against Israeli-American normalisation of continued ethnic cleansing and colonial land grabs in Palestine.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.