UAE, Saudi Arabia form new partnership separate from GCC

AL Jazeera

December 5, 2017

Dec 5: The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have formed a new military and trade partnership separate from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), according to a statement issued by the UAE.

The development on Tuesday comes amid heightened tensions within the GCC, a political and economic alliance of six countries that includes Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Oman.

According to the statement from the UAE foreign ministry, the new committee "is assigned to cooperate and coordinate between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in all military, political, economic, trade and cultural fields, as well as others, in the interest of the two countries".

The GCC has faced an unprecedented crisis over the past six months amid a Saudi-led blockade of Qatar.

Representatives of the six countries were meeting in Kuwait on Tuesday for the council's annual summit.

Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from Kuwait City, said the UAE/Saudi partnership "would be seen as very antagonising towards the GCC as an organisation, an organisation that has been under threat very much because of the actions of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in terms of imposing a blockade which has gone on for six months now".

Qatar siege

Since June, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt have enforced a land, sea and air blockade against Qatar, accusing the tiny Gulf nation of supporting "terrorism".

Qatar has denied the allegations and accused the neighbouring countries of attempting to infringe on its sovereignty.

The 38th GCC summit in Kuwait City began amid concerns over how long the crisis has persisted and calls from residents for a speedy resolution.

The announcement of the new Saudi-UAE partnership could complicate matters further, Elshayyal noted.

"For a decision, or an announcement, like that to happen at the summit is something that will be seen, as far as the Kuwaitis are concerned, as quite frankly offensive to their efforts to try and unite the GCC as a region," he said.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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