Amman: Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh Sunday condemned in Cabinet session the “brutal” Israeli strike in the Tabeen School in the Al-Daraj neighbourhood in the Gaza Strip.

Khasawneh said the bombing of the school that housed displaced Palestinians “is a crime to be added to the record of shame in the series of war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations that the Israeli occupation authorities and the Israeli occupation army have been inflicting in Gaza and the West Bank,” adding, “the Israeli crimes against Palestinians comprise a clear violation of the rules of international law and international humanitarian law.”

Khasawneh condemned what he described an “aggressive behaviour” of Israeli politicians, accusing them of “living off bloodshed, the violation of state sovereignty and stooping to the abhorrent political assassinations that are condemned and rejected, including what we witnessed of the violation of Lebanese sovereignty and the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which Jorda
n condemned.”

The Prime Minister said, “The escalation and stooping to this level of crimes, in addition to the use of starvation as a weapon against our people in the Gaza Strip and the settler violence in the West Bank always coincides with negotiations in which hopes are high for achieving an exchange deal and a ceasefire that leads to stopping the ongoing and horrific killing and slaughter machine perpetrated against our people in Gaza.”

Khasawneh said, “Since day one of Israel’s aggression on Gaza, the King has been making continued efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza,” adding, “The King is leading activity and effort whose central and fundamental basis is to reach a sustainable ceasefire and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to our people in Gaza.”

He added that the King is keen to produce a political horizon leading to the re-establishment of regional stability and the attainment of the “legitimate” rights of the Palestinians, especially their right to statehood on the 4 June 1967 borders with Eas
t Jerusalem as its capital.

Khasawneh said, “We must always continue in this noble endeavour alongside our efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to the extent available to our people in the Gaza Strip and to support our people in the West Bank with the humanitarian aid they need.”

On regional escalation, Khasawneh said, “Jordan will not allow its airspace to be violated by any party, and will confront anything that might pose a threat to our national security and citizens,” adding that Jordan has “clearly and explicitly” informed the Iranians and Israelis that it would not allow anyone to violate its airspace and endanger the lives or safety of its citizens.

He said life should continue as usual in the Kingdom, “For life to continue as regularly is what enhances our resilience and the resilience of our national economy in a way that enables us to support our public issues and our people in the Gaza Strip and all of Palestine and various Arab issues. It helps us to enjoy the required resilience and ability to
move.”

He added, “If the course of life is not regular, and especially the course of economic life, it will lead to losses that may limit our ability to meet the needs of our people in Palestine and the Gaza Strip and support and assist them. We must advance our economy within the framework of the axes of the comprehensive modernisation.”

Khasawneh added, “In the path of political modernization, we will witness in the holding of parliamentary elections on the tenth of next September as the first station in this path,” urging Jordanians to vote.

Khasawneh added that the general economic performance has been affected by the current events in the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea regarding rising costs, slowing tourism movement and even changing consumption patterns due to the ongoing crimes in the Gaza Strip and the ongoing escalation in the entire region.

He added, “The results of the 2023 New Job Opportunities Survey show that we and the Jordanian economy were able to create 95,342 job opportunities compared to
89,500 in 2022,” noting that the average job opportunities created in the Jordanian economy from 2010 to 2019 did not exceed 35,000 job opportunities except one year in which they reached 67,000.

Khasawneh added, “We are proceeding in the right steps in the field of comprehensive modernisation with its three tracks and are approaching the ambitious target envisioned by the Economic Modernisation Vision with the ability to create 1,000,000 job opportunities by the end of the ten years of the Economic Modernisation Vision.”

He said that the Jordanian economy is resilient and strong and that financial institutions and international bodies trust the Jordanian economy, adding that the Kingdom’s exports to debt service are around 20 per cent.

He explained that the government is reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio after 2025 as prepared and as planned.

He added that the credit ratings of the Jordanian economy have either been stabilised or increased for the first time in 21 years by accredited international credit ra
ting agencies.

He said, “Thanks be to God Almighty and the wisdom of our leadership and the international standing of His Majesty the King, and thanks to our prudent financial and monetary policy, we were able to remain on a path that is not easy, but it is a confident and stable path.

“The economy is capable of absorbing all shocks and achieving targets and continuing to achieve economic growth rates that may not reach the stage of expectations that we were on, which was close to 3 per cent until October 7 of last year, and we were hoping that it would be higher than that this year.”

Khasawneh added, “We are still achieving positive economic growth within this path, which has many challenges due to what is happening in the region, which has led to some difficulties.

“These difficulties are certainly not of the type that the Jordanian economy has not faced before, but rather it has faced them and demonstrated the ability to adapt greatly and adjust greatly due to our adoption of prudent financial and mone
tary policies.”

“Our policies that we have adopted have always sought to take into account the national interest, preserve the middle class and maintain economic stability in the medium and long term and distance ourselves from resorting to the logic of populism that leads to undesirable consequences, which other countries in the region have witnessed.”

Khasawneh added, “We are moving forward with confidence and commitment in the second century, God willing, of the life of the confident state, to achieve what His Majesty the King and His Highness the Crown Prince aspire to and certainly the same thing regarding the path of economic modernisation.”

He discussed the “need” to complete the amendment to the civil service system regarding allowing public sector employees to have a second job.

Source: Jordan News Agency