October 31, 2023

This is TRT World’s Daily News Brief for Tuesday, October 31st. *) Israel’s ‘concept paper’ suggests expulsion of Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai An Israeli government ministry has drafted a wartime proposal to transfer 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, drawing condemnation from Palestine and worsening tensions with Cairo. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office played down the report compiled by the Intelligence Ministry as a hypothetical exercise — a “concept paper.” But its conclusions deepened long-standing Egyptian concerns that Israel wants to make Gaza into Egypt's problem, and revive for Palestinians memories of their greatest trauma — the Nakba in 1948. *) Israeli army detonates house of Hamas deputy leader in occupied West Bank Israeli forces detonated the house of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al Arouri in the occupied West Bank, according to witnesses. Israeli forces raided the town of Arura northwest of Ramallah and searched al Arouri’s house, a witness told Anadolu Agency. Israel blames Al Arouri for attacks against Israeli targets in the occupied West Bank. *) Aid distribution centres halt work as civil order breaks down in Gaza: UN A breakdown in civil order has put four UN aid distribution centres and a storage facility out of action in Gaza as people search desperately for food and water. A UN Palestinian refugee agency official said a logistics base at the Rafah border crossing vital to aid distribution had become increasingly difficult to operate because 8,000 people were sheltering at it. “With the breakdown of civil order, every day now we’ve got hundreds of people trying to get into the warehouses to steal flour,” the official said. *) UN warns of Syria danger, ‘spillover’ from Israel’s war on Gaza The UN has warned that Syria was at its “most dangerous” point in a long time as violence surges and the “spillover” from Israel's war on Gaza starts to have an impact. Syria has “seen growing instability and violence, exacerbated by the lack of a