G7 nations urge de-escalation in Middle East amid threat of broader conflict
G7 nations urge de-escalation in Middle East amid threat of broader conflict/node/2562481/middle-east
G7 nations urge de-escalation in Middle East amid threat of broader conflict
G7 foreign ministers met by videoconference Sunday to discuss the Middle East and expressed “strong concern” over the threat of escalation, Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said. (Reuters/File Photo)
G7 nations urge de-escalation in Middle East amid threat of broader conflict
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said they expressed “strong concern” over the threat of escalation
Updated 05 August 2024
AFP
ROME: G7 foreign ministers met by videoconference Sunday to discuss the Middle East and expressed “strong concern” over the threat of escalation, Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.
The Group of Seven major democracies urged restraint and de-escalation in the Middle East on Monday, saying that recent events "threatened to ignite a broader conflict in the region."
The G7 urged "all involved parties once again to refrain from perpetuating the current destructive cycle of retaliatory violence, to lower tensions and engage constructively toward de-escalation," in a statement.
“Together with our partners, we have expressed strong concern about recent events that threaten to determine a regionalization of the crisis, starting from Lebanon,” said Tajani in a statement.
“We call on the parties involved to desist from any initiative that could hinder the path of dialogue and moderation and favor a new escalation,” said the statement issued by the foreign ministry of Italy, which holds the G7 presidency this year.
The foreign ministers, it said, “reiterated the priority of a favorable conclusion of the negotiations on the ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages” while stepping up humanitarian assistance.
Iran air traffic resumes after suspension: state media
Iran on Tuesday launched around 200 missiles in its second direct attack on Israel, in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Tehran-aligned militant leaders in the region, along with a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
Updated 16 sec ago
AFP
TEHRAN: Iranian authorities announced Monday the resumption of air traffic after flight cancelations at some airports over “operational restrictions,” state media reported, as Israel vowed to retaliate for an Iranian missile strike.
Flights have been operational again since 11:00 p.m. (1930 GMT) Sunday and were being “carried out in accordance with the flight schedule,” said Jafar Yazarloo, spokesman for Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, quoted by the IRNA state news agency.
Iran on Tuesday launched around 200 missiles in its second direct attack on Israel, in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Tehran-aligned militant leaders in the region, along with a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Ever since, Israel has said that it will respond to Iran’s attack.
Iran initially closed its airspace for less than two days, from Tuesday night until Thursday morning.
The aviation body announced then that both domestic and international flights were grounded for security reasons until the reopening.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has advised European airlines to avoid Iranian airspace until October 31, with the situation under ongoing review.
Worse than the Naksa and Nakba combined? One year on and no hope in sight
It was the horror of Deir Yassin that more than any other single incident symbolized the violent ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 that came to be known as the Nakba — “the catastrophe”
In the 12 months since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, echoes of Deir Yassin and traumatic memories of the Nakba, have surfaced afresh in the collective consciousness of the Arab world
Updated 55 min 46 sec ago
Jonathan Gornall
It would be wrong to say that the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, a settlement a few kilometers west of Jerusalem whose origins can be traced back to at least the 16th century, no longer exists.
Certainly, its name has been erased from the maps, and the Arabs and the generations of their forebears who once lived here are long gone, while the remains of the village’s derelict cemetery were bulldozed in the 1980s to make way for a new highway.
But some of the 144 stone buildings of Deir Yassin, including one of the two schools built by the villagers, can still be seen, glimpsed behind a security fence and incorporated into the sprawling campus of an Israeli hospital for the mentally ill.
Old Arab buildings remain from the village of Deir Yassin, now part of a mental hospital in Jerusalem, where irregular Jewish troops massacred over 100 Palestinians and drove out the remaining residents in 1948. (AFP/File)
The Kfar Shaul psychiatric hospital was built on the site of the village in 1951, with no apparent regard, ironic or otherwise, for the traumatic events that had taken place there just three years earlier.
On April 9, 1948, Zionist terrorists attacked Deir Yassin and, in the words of the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, carried out “the best known and perhaps bloodiest atrocity” of the civil war that broke out following the adoption by the UN of the controversial Partition Plan for Palestine.
Opinion
This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)
Approximately 250 residents of Deir Yassin, including men, women and children, were massacred in cold blood by members of the Jewish paramilitary Irgun and Lehi organizations.
Just over a month after the massacre, part of the wave of Jewish terrorism designed to seize as much land as possible for the Zionist colonial enterprise, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel, on May 14, 1948.
What happened at Deir Yassin in 1948 was by no means unique.
Israeli nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu (3rd L) joins Palestinians in their memorial march on April 7, 2005 at the original site of their former village of Deir Yassin in Jerusalem. (AFP)
But it was the horror of Deir Yassin, news of which spread quickly, that more than any other single incident symbolized the violent ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 that came to be known as the Nakba — “the catastrophe.”
In the 12 months since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, echoes of Deir Yassin and traumatic memories of the Nakba, and of the Naksa “setback,” the subsequent seizure by Israel of the remaining Palestinian territories in 1967, have surfaced afresh in the collective consciousness of the Arab world.
Caption
Over the past year in Gaza, more than 40,000 people, including over 10,000 children, have been killed by Israel’s forces, exacting indiscriminate and disproportionate vengeance for the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on Oct. 7 and the more than 40 hostages are thought to have died in captivity.
On Sept. 17 and 18, Israel began an extraordinary assault on Lebanon, when hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies boobytrapped by Israeli agents exploded in the hands of members of Hezbollah across Lebanon. More than 40 people were killed and thousands injured, including many civilian bystanders, children among them.
Days of airstrikes followed, aimed at killing Hezbollah leaders but inevitably claiming more civilian than combatant lives.
By Sept. 25 the Ministry of Health in Lebanon had already reported 558 killed, including 50 children, and more than 1,800 injured.
And then, early on Tuesday, Israeli troops invaded Lebanon.
Smoke rises over Dahiyeh in Beirut's southern suburbs, after Israeli air strikes, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Sin El Fil, Lebanon, October 6, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Once again, Arabs fearing for their lives and those of their children at the hands of Israel are on the move, evoking fraught memories of the Nakba and the Naksa.
On Sept. 24 and 25, “following significant escalation in the armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and the subsequent arrival of Palestine refugees from the south seeking shelter in safer areas,” UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) opened three emergency shelters in the vicinity of the city of Saida, on the coast.
UNRWA paints a picture tragically reminiscent of the scenes witnessed in 1948 and again in 1967.
Israeli soldiers operate at a location given as southern Lebanon in this image released on October 6, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS)
“The intensive airstrikes,” it reports, “have displaced tens of thousands of civilians, with many seeking shelter in the north. The city of Saida has reportedly experienced a large influx of displaced persons, leading to shortages of basic supplies such as bread and drinking water.”
As of Sept. 24, “around 200,000 people were estimated to be displaced in Lebanon,” with almost half on the move since the pager attacks on Sept. 17.
By now the situation is almost certainly even worse. Today, as the world looks on, apparently helpless or unwilling to intervene, history is repeating itself.
Hezbollah rockets hit Israel’s Haifa and Tiberias, 10 injured
Israel’s military said fighter jets hit targets belonging to Hezbollah’s Intelligence Headquarters in Beirut, including intelligence-gathering means, command centers, and additional infrastructure sites
Updated 07 October 2024
Reuters
JERUSALEM: Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, Israeli police said early on Monday, and Israeli media reported 10 people were injured in the country’s north.
Hezbollah said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with a salvo of “Fadi 1” missiles. Media reports said two rockets hit Haifa on Israel’s Mediterranean Coast and five others hit Tiberias 65 km (40 miles) away.
Police said some buildings and properties were damaged, and there were several reports of minor injuries with some people taken to a nearby hospital.
Video taken by surveillance camera showed the moment a Hezbollah rocket hit Haifa.
Reuters was able to independently verify the location with the design and outline of the buildings, business signs, trees and road layout that match the file and satellite imagery of the area. Reuters was able to independently verify the date with corroborating reports and the timestamp of the footage.
Israel’s military said fighter jets hit targets belonging to Hezbollah’s Intelligence Headquarters in Beirut, including intelligence-gathering means, command centers, and additional infrastructure sites.
Over the past few hours, the airstrikes struck Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in the area of Beirut, the military said, noting that secondary explosions were identified following the strikes, indicating the presence of weaponry.
Airstrikes also struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa area, including weapons storage facilities, infrastructure sites, a command center, and a launcher, the military said.
It blamed Hezbollah for deliberately embedding its command centers and weaponry beneath residential buildings in the heart of the city of Beirut and endangering the civilian population.
“Russian Aerospace Forces have struck two identified sites of militant who left the Al-Tanf zone,” RIA quoted Ignasyuk, who is also theputy head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, as telling a briefing
Updated 07 October 2024
Reuters
DAMASCUS: Russia’s air force carried out strikes on two militant sites in Syria outside the area of Al-Tanf, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported on Sunday, referring to the region of a US military base.
Citing Captain Oleg Ignasyuk, the report did not specify the location but said the militants had recently left the Al-Tanf area, which borders Jordan.
“Russian Aerospace Forces have struck two identified sites of militant who left the Al-Tanf zone,” RIA quoted Ignasyuk, who is also theputy head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, as telling a briefing.
Tunisia’s Saied toward landslide win in election, supporters celebrate
Saied, 66, has rejected criticism of his actions, saying he is fighting a corrupt elite and traitors, and that he will not be a dictator
Updated 07 October 2024
Reuters
TUNIS: Supporters of current Tunisian President Kais Saied began celebrations in the capital on Sunday night after an exit poll broadcast on state television showed him winning, beating two rivals, one of whom is now in prison
Saied on Sunday faced two election rivals: his former ally turned critic, Chaab Party leader Zouhair Maghzaoui, and Ayachi Zammel, who was jailed last month.
Turnout stood at 27.7 percent, the election commission said after the close of polls — just half what it was in the runoff round of the 2019 presidential election.
Official results are not expected until Monday evening but an exit poll by Sigma company, a polling agency, showed Saied in the lead with 89.2 percent of votes, according to state television.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Main rival was jailed last month
• Rights groups say Saied has undone democratic gains
• Saied says he is fighting a corrupt elite
• Exit poll puts Saied in the lead with 89.2 percent of votes
In his first comment, Saied told state television, “This is a continuation of the revolution. We will build and will cleanse the country of the corrupt, traitors and conspirators.”
Zammel and Maghzaoui’s campaigns rejected the exit poll results saying the real results will be different.
On the main avenue of Habib Bourguiba in the capital city of Tunis, celebrants raised pictures of Saied and the Tunisian flag, chanting “The people want to build and develop.”
“We rejoice for a person because he served the state and not for his own benefit, he serves for the benefit of the people and the state,” Mohsen Ibrahim said when he was celebrating.
Tunisia had for years been hailed as the only relative success story of the 2011 “Arab Spring” uprisings for introducing a competitive, though flawed, democracy following decades of autocratic rule.
However, rights groups now say Saied, in power since 2019, has undone many of those democratic gains while removing institutional and legal checks on his power. Saied, 66, has rejected criticism of his actions, saying he is fighting a corrupt elite and traitors, and that he will not be a dictator.
Senior figures from the biggest parties, which largely oppose Saied, have been imprisoned on various charges over the past year and those parties have not publicly backed any of the three candidates on Sunday’s ballot. Other opponents have been barred from running.
“The scene is shameful. Journalists and opponents in prison, including one presidential candidate.” said Wael, a bank employee in Tunis, who gave only his first name. CANDIDATES DISQUALIFIED
Political tensions have risen since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three prominent candidates last month, amid protests by opposition and civil society groups.
Lawmakers loyal to Saied then approved a law last week stripping the administrative court of authority over election disputes. This court is widely seen as the country’s last independent judicial body, after Saied dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022.
While elections in the years soon after the 2011 revolution were fiercely contested and drew very high participation rates, public anger at Tunisia’s poor economic performance and corruption among the elite led to disillusionment.
Saied, elected in 2019, seized most powers in 2021 when he dissolved the elected parliament and rewrote the constitution, a move the opposition described as a coup.
A referendum on the constitution passed with turnout of only 30 percent, while a January 2023 runoff for the new, nearly powerless, parliament he created with that constitution had turnout of only 11 percent.
Although tourism revenues are on the rise and there has been financial help from European countries worried about migration, state finances remain strained. Shortages of subsidised goods are common, as are outages of power and water.
