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Israel says no change in defense policy for ‘now’

Israel says no change in defense policy for ‘now’
A man carries the body of a girl killed during Israeli bombardment on the Al-Nassr school that houses displaced Palestinians, West of Gaza city, on August 4, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant Hamas group. (AFP)
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Updated 05 August 2024
AFP
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Israel says no change in defense policy for ‘now’

Israel says no change in defense policy for ‘now’
  • Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's killing last week has triggered fears of regional conflict
  • Israel’s statement comes amid warnings of retaliation from Iran, Lebanon-based Hezbollah 
Updated 05 August 2024
AFP
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JERUSALEM: Israel’s army said Sunday it had not changed “as of now” its policy for protecting civilians, as Iran and Hezbollah are expected to avenge killings blamed on Israel of two senior members.
“I would like to refer tonight to the various reports and rumors that we are on alert for the enemy’s response to the territory of the State of Israel,” military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in an online briefing to journalists.
“I emphasize that as of now there is no change in the Home Front Command’s defense policy,” he said of a branch of the army that deals with the protection of civilians in times of war and emergency, including natural disasters.
Hagari and other top Israeli military and government officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have repeatedly said the country is prepared for any attack.
But Hagari said that Israel’s protection is not “hermetic.”
“We strive to give you the necessary warning to prepare for any threat,” he said.
“The protection is not hermetic. Therefore, every citizen is required to know what the instructions are, wherever he is and to be vigilant.”
Hagari also announced that the Home Front Command has launched a new system to alert citizens in the event of any emergency.
“The alert will be sent to mobile phones in the area under threat,” he said.
“This is done without the need for an application and without any action on the part of the citizen.”
Fears that the almost 10-month-old Gaza war could become a regional conflict after the killings Tuesday of Hezbollah top commander Fuad Shukr in a Beirut suburb and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh the following day in Tehran.
Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah have vowed to avenge the deaths which they blame on Israel.
Israel has claimed responsibility for killing Shukr but remained silent on Haniyeh’s death.
Hezbollah has been trading near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since war erupted in Gaza on October 7 following Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel.

Topics: Israel

Families flee intense fighting near Sudan’s Khartoum

Families flee intense fighting near Sudan’s Khartoum
Updated 11 sec ago
AFP
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Families flee intense fighting near Sudan’s Khartoum

Families flee intense fighting near Sudan’s Khartoum
  • Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked the Hattab base in Khartoum North, also known as Bahri, on Wednesday
  • The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises
Updated 11 sec ago
AFP
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Hundreds of families fled a northern suburb of Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Saturday after fighting between the army and paramilitaries intensified around a key military base, witnesses said.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked the Hattab base in Khartoum North, also known as Bahri, on Wednesday.
The army, led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, is locked in conflict with the RSF led by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The war began in April 2023 and has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
“Since this morning, the army has been firing artillery toward the south of Hattab while military planes are flying over” the area, one witness said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Nasr El-Din, a resident who asked that only his first name be used for security reasons, said the RSF “attacked houses south (of the Hattab base), capturing citizens and killing others.”
“Since early morning, hundreds of families have left for the north, carrying their belongings on their heads,” he added in an account corroborated by another witness.
UN experts on Friday called for the deployment of an “independent and impartial force” to protect millions of civilians driven from their homes in Sudan.
After an independent fact-finding mission mandated by the Human Rights Council, the UN experts said “harrowing” violations by both sides had been uncovered, “which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Meanwhile more than 25 million people — upwards of half Sudan’s population — face acute hunger, with full-blown famine declared in a camp for displaced people in the volatile western region of Darfur.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Saturday began a two-day visit to Port Sudan, the de facto seat of government after fighting forced the authorities out of Khartoum.
He met a health minister and will also meet other officials and visit health facilities, an AFP correspondent on the ground reported.

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 61 as UN pursues vaccinations

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 61 as UN pursues vaccinations
Updated 7 min 6 sec ago
Reuters
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Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 61 as UN pursues vaccinations

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 61 as UN pursues vaccinations
  • Numerous rounds of diplomacy have so far failed to clinch a ceasefire deal to end the conflict
  • Despite the deadlock, the UN has pursued a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza
Updated 7 min 6 sec ago
Reuters

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes across the Palestinian Gaza Strip killed at least 61 people in the space of 24 hours, local medics said on Saturday, as Israeli forces battled Hamas-led militants in the territory.

Eleven months into the war, numerous rounds of diplomacy have so far failed to clinch a ceasefire deal to end the conflict and bring the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza as well as many Palestinians jailed in Israel.

An Israeli air strike in on the Halima Al-Sa’diyya school compound serving as a shelter for displaced people in the Jabalia urban refugee camp killed at least eight people and wounded 15 others, medics said.

The Israeli military said the strike had targeted a Hamas command center inside the compound. It accused Hamas of repeatedly exploiting civilians and civilian infrastructure for military purposes, an allegation Hamas denies.

Five more people were killed in a strike on a house in Gaza City.

The armed wings of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah groups said they had fought Israeli troops in Gaza City, in central areas and in the south with anti-tank rockets and mortars, and in some incidents detonated bombs to target tanks and other army vehicles.

The two warring sides continued to blame one another for the failure of mediators, including Qatar, Egypt and the United States, to broker a ceasefire. The US is preparing to present a new proposal, but the prospects of a breakthrough appear dim as gaps between the sides remain large. CIA Director William Burns, the chief US negotiator, told an event in London that a more detailed proposal would be made in the coming days.

PAUSES IN FIGHTING LET POLIO VACCINATIONS CONTINUE

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was incumbent on both Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which ran Gaza before the war and was responsible for the Oct. 7 killing spree against Jews in Israel that triggered it, to make concessions to reach a deal.

On Saturday, senior Hamas official Hossam Badran said the group had made no new demands and remained committed to a July 2 proposal put forward by the United States, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attaching new conditions that would not end the war.

Netanyahu says it was Hamas that introduced unacceptable conditions.

Despite the deadlock, the United Nations, in collaboration with local health authorities, has pursued a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza after its first polio case in around 25 years. Limited pauses in the fighting have allowed the campaign to proceed.

UN officials said they were making progress, having reached over half of the children needing the drops in the first two stages in the southern and central Gaza Strip.

On Sunday, the campaign will move to the northern Gaza Strip. A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on the enclave has killed over 40,900 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court, which Israel denies.

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza US

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Algeria votes with Tebboune eyeing easy re-election

Algeria votes with Tebboune eyeing easy re-election
Updated 07 September 2024
AFP
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Algeria votes with Tebboune eyeing easy re-election

Algeria votes with Tebboune eyeing easy re-election
Updated 07 September 2024
AFP

ALGEIRS: Algerians began voting on Saturday in a presidential election widely expected to bring a second term for the incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune who is hoping for a high turnout.
Tebboune, 78, is heavily favored to see off moderate Islamist Abdelaali Hassani and socialist candidate Youcef Aouchiche.
Polling stations opened at 8:00 am (0700 GMT) and are set to close at 7:00 pm.
Preliminary results could come as early as Saturday night, with the electoral authority, ANIE, bound to announce the official results on Sunday at the latest.
“The winner is known in advance,” political commentator Mohamed Hennad posted on Facebook before voting began, referring to Tebboune.
Tebboune’s opponents stood little chance because of low support and the “conditions in which the electoral campaign took place, which is nothing more than a farce,” Hennad wrote.
The incumbent’s main challenge is to boost the turnout in the North African country, after he won in 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, but amid a record abstention rate of more than 60 percent.
“The president is keen to have a significant turnout,” Hasni Abidi, an analyst at the Geneva-based CERMAM Study Center. “It’s his main issue.”
The low turnout in 2019 followed the Hirak pro-democracy protests, which toppled former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika before they were quashed with ramped-up policing and the jailing of hundreds of people.
Campaign rallies have struggled to generate enthusiasm in the nation of 45 million, partly due to the summer heat.
More than 850,000 Algerians living abroad have been able to vote since Monday.
With young people making up more than half the population, all candidates are targeting their votes with promises to improve living standards and reduce dependence on hydrocarbons.
Tebboune has touted economic successes during his first term, including more jobs and higher wages in the country, Africa’s largest exporter of natural gas.
His challengers have vowed to grant Algerians more freedoms.
Aouchiche says he is committed “to release prisoners of conscience through an amnesty and to review unjust laws,” including on media and terrorism.
Hassani has advocated “freedoms that have been reduced to nothing in recent years.”
Political analyst Abidi said Tebboune should address the major deficit in political and media freedoms as politics is “absent from the scene,” with Algerians having “divorced from current politics” after the Hirak protests ended.
Five years later, rights group Amnesty International said Algerian authorities were “committed to maintaining a zero-tolerance approach toward dissenting opinions.”

Topics: Algeria politics Vote

Libya’s coast guard intercepts 64 Europe-bound migrants

Libya’s coast guard intercepts 64 Europe-bound migrants
Updated 07 September 2024
AP
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Libya’s coast guard intercepts 64 Europe-bound migrants

Libya’s coast guard intercepts 64 Europe-bound migrants
  • The boat was carrying 64 migrants and was intercepted Friday off the northwestern town of Sirte
Updated 07 September 2024
AP

CAIRO: Libya’s coast guard intercepted dozens of Europe-bound migrants on a boat and returned them to shore, authorities said Saturday, a few days after a shipwreck off the North African country left nearly two dozen dead or missing.
The boat was carrying 64 migrants and was intercepted Friday off the northwestern town of Sirte, according to the town’s coast guard unit. It posted images on Facebook showing dozens of migrants, including at least one woman and a child, upon their return. The coast guard also set the migrant boat on fire, a procedure aimed at preventing its reuse by traffickers.
On Wednesday, a boat carrying 32 migrants from Egypt and Syria capsized off Libya’s eastern town of Tobruk, leaving 22 missing and presumed dead. The Libyan coast guard said it rescued nine people and recovered one body.
Libya, which has borders with six nations and a longshore on the Mediterranean, plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Since then, the oil-rich country has emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and seeking better lives in Europe.
Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the disorder in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country’s lengthy borders. The migrants are crowded onto ill-equipped vessels, including rubber boats, and set off on risky sea voyages to Europe.
According to the International Organization for Migration’s missing migrants project, at least 434 were reported dead and 611 missing off Libya between January and August this year while more than 14,100 migrants were intercepted and brought back to shore.
The intercepted migrants are held in government-run detention centers rife with abuses, including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture — practices that amount to crimes against humanity, according to UN-commissioned investigators. The abuse often accompanies attempts to extort money from the families of the imprisoned migrants before releasing them or allowing them to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats to Europe.

Topics: Libya

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Family demands independent probe into Israeli military killing of American

Family demands independent probe into Israeli military killing of American
Updated 07 September 2024
AFP
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Family demands independent probe into Israeli military killing of American

Family demands independent probe into Israeli military killing of American
  • Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was “shot in the head” while participating in a demonstration in Beita in the West Bank
  • Washington called it a “tragic” event and has pressed its close ally Israel to investigate
Updated 07 September 2024
AFP

JERUSALEM: The family of a Turkish-American woman shot dead while demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank demanded an independent investigation into her death on Saturday, accusing the Israeli military of killing her “violently.”
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, was “shot in the head” while participating in a demonstration in Beita in the West Bank on Friday.
“Her presence in our lives was taken needlessly, unlawfully, and violently by the Israeli military,” Eygi’s family said in a statement.
“A US citizen, Aysenur was peacefully standing for justice when she was killed by a bullet that video shows came from an Israeli military shooter.
“We call on President (Joe) Biden, Vice President (Kamala) Harris, and Secretary of State (Antony) Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a US citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties.”
The Israeli military said its forces “responded with fire toward a main instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them” during the protest.
Eygi was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organization, and was in Beita on Friday for a weekly demonstration against Israeli settlements, according to ISM.
In recent years, pro-Palestinian demonstrators have frequently held weekly protests against the Eviatar settlement outpost overlooking Beita, which is backed by far-right Israeli ministers.
During Friday’s protest, Eygi was shot in the head, according to the UN rights office and Rafidia hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Turkiye said she was killed by “Israeli occupation soldiers,” with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemning the Israeli action as “barbaric.”
Washington called it a “tragic” event and has pressed its close ally Israel to investigate.
But her family has demanded an independent probe.
“Given the circumstances of Aysenur’s killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate,” her family said.
Her family said Eygi always advocated “an end to the violence against the people of Palestine.”
Israeli settlements in the West Bank — where about 490,000 people live — are illegal under international law.
Since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel which triggered the war in Gaza, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 690 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 23 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period, according to Israeli officials.

Topics: War on Gaza Israel

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