US charges Hamas leader, other militants in connection with Oct. 7 massacre in Israel

Palestinians wave their national flag and celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the southern Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP)
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Palestinians wave their national flag and celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the southern Gaza Strip fence east of Khan Younis on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP)
US charges Hamas leader, other militants in connection with Oct. 7 massacre in Israel
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Yahya Sinwar. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 04 September 2024
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US charges Hamas leader, other militants in connection with Oct. 7 massacre in Israel

US charges Hamas leader, other militants in connection with Oct. 7 massacre in Israel
  • Sinwar was appointed the overall head of Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and sits atop Israel’s most-wanted list
  • Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count

WASHINGTON: The Justice Department announced criminal charges Tuesday against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other senior militants in connection with the Oct. 7, 2023, rampage in Israel, marking the first effort by American law enforcement to formally call out the masterminds of the attack.
The seven-count criminal complaint filed in federal court in New York City includes charges such as conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death, conspiracy to murder US nationals and conspiracy to finance terrorism. It also accuses Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah of providing financial support, weapons, including rockets, and military supplies to Hamas for use in attacks.
The impact of the case may be mostly symbolic given that Sinwar is believed to be hiding in tunnels in Gaza and the Justice Department says three of the six defendants are believed now to be dead. But officials say additional actions are expected as part of a broader effort to target a militant group that the US designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 and that over the decades has been linked to a series of deadly attacks on Israel, including suicide bombings.
The complaint was originally filed under seal in February to give the US time to try to take into custody then-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other defendants, but it was unsealed Tuesday after Haniyeh’s death in July and other developments in the region lessened the need for secrecy, the Justice Department said.
“The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a video statement. “These actions will not be our last.”
The charges come as the White House says it is developing a new ceasefire and hostage deal proposal with its Egyptian and Qatari counterparts to try to bring about an agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the nearly 11-month war in Gaza.
A US official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press there was no reason to believe the charges would affect the ongoing negotiations.
National security spokesman John Kirby said the recent “executions” of six hostages, including one American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, by Hamas underscore “the sense of urgency” in the talks.
“We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of the brutal murders of Americans, as acts of terrorism,” Garland said in the statement. “We will continue to support the whole of government effort to bring the Americans still being held hostage home.”
Sinwar was appointed the overall head of Hamas after the killing of Haniyeh in Iran and sits atop Israel’s most-wanted list. He is believed to have spent most of the past 10 months living in tunnels under Gaza, and it is unclear how much contact he has with the outside world. He was a long-serving Palestinian prisoner freed in an exchange of the type that would be part of a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Haniyeh was also charged.
Other Hamas leaders facing charges include Marwan Issa, deputy leader of Hamas’ armed wing in Gaza, who helped plan last year’s attack and who Israel says was killed when its fighter jets struck an underground compound in central Gaza in March; Khaled Mashaal, another Haniyeh deputy and a former leader of the group thought to be based in Qatar; Mohammed Deif, Hamas’ longtime shadowy military leader who was thought to be killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza in July; and Lebanon-based Ali Baraka, Hamas’ head of external relations.
The charges are “yet another tool” for the US to respond to the threat Hamas poses to the US and its ally Israel, said Merissa Khurma, Middle East program director at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington.
“If Sinwar is found and brought to justice for planning the October 7 attacks, it would be a significant win for the US and for all those who lost loved ones,” she said by email.
However, with Sinwar in hiding, Khurma doesn’t see the charges adding more pressure on Hamas. She noted that the chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court sought arrest warrants for Hamas leaders like Sinwar and it didn’t change their behavior or weaken them in the ceasefire negotiations.
She said the case was still important for the US because many of those killed or kidnapped were Americans and because the country doesn’t recognize the International Criminal Court.
During the Oct. 7 attacks, militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 people hostage. Roughly 100 hostages remain, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
The criminal complaint describes the massacre as the “most violent, large-scale terrorist attack” in Hamas’ history. It details how Hamas operatives who arrived in southern Israel with “trucks, motorcycles, bulldozers, speedboats, and paragliders” engaged in a brutal campaign of violence that included rape, genital mutilation and machine-gun shootings at close range.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, forced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to flee their homes, often multiple times, and created a humanitarian catastrophe.
Hamas has accused Israel of dragging out months of negotiations by issuing new demands, including for lasting Israeli control over the Philadelphi corridor along the border of Egypt and a second corridor running across Gaza.
Hamas has offered to release all hostages in return for an end to the war, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants — broadly the terms called for under an outline for a deal put forward by President Joe Biden in July.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged “total victory” over Hamas and blames it for the failure of the negotiations.

 


‘Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel’: Palestinian president

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, US.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, US.
Updated 13 sec ago
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‘Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel’: Palestinian president

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York, US.
  • ‘Israel must stop the war in Lebanon and Palestine,’ Mahmoud Abbas tells UN General Assembly
  • ‘The entire world is responsible for what’s happening to our people in Gaza and the West Bank’

LONDON: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday urged the international community to stop sending weapons to Israel in order to end the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank.

“Stop this crime. Stop it now. Stop killing children and women. Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel,” he told the UN General Assembly.

“This madness can’t continue. The entire world is responsible for what’s happening to our people in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Abbas’s comments come after the Health Ministry in Gaza on Thursday said at least 41,534 people have been killed in the war, now in its 12th month.

He said the Israeli government took advantage of the Hamas attack last October to launch an all-out genocide against Gaza. 

“It committed and continues to commit war crimes, as acknowledged by the international community,” Abbas added. 

He said Israel is now launching “a new aggression on the Lebanese people,” who are being “subjected to a war of genocide.”

He added: “Israel must stop the war in Lebanon and in Palestine. We condemn this aggression, and we demand that it stops immediately.

“Israel has reoccupied the Gaza Strip in its entirety … Seventy-five percent of everything in Gaza has been fully destroyed.” 

More than 600 people have been killed since Monday in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, which follow nearly a year of cross-border fire with Hezbollah in parallel with the Gaza war.

Abbas called on the international community to impose sanctions on Israel, and said the country does not deserve to be a UN member. 

“The international community must immediately impose sanctions on Israel. The massacres, the crimes, the genocide that Israel has been perpetrating against our people since its inception in 1948 to this very day won’t go unpunished,” he said.

“Israel, which refuses to implement UN resolutions, doesn’t deserve to be a member in this international organization.”

Abbas called for a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the delivery of humanitarian aid throughout Gaza, and a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory. 

“We refuse the establishment of buffer zones or taking any part from Gaza,” he said. “We won’t allow a single centimeter of Gaza to be taken.

“The State of Palestine must shoulder its responsibilities in the Gaza Strip and impose its full mandate on it and jurisdiction on it, including the border checkpoints, especially the Rafah international border.”

He said the Palestinian Authority should have control over all Palestinian territories, and it would hold elections once the war is over. Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007.

Abbas concluded by saying: “Palestine will be free. It will be free, despite anyone who objects to that. Our people will live on the land of their fathers and grandfathers, as they’ve done for more than 6,000 years. They’ll continue their legitimate struggle for independence. The occupation will end.”


Sudan army chief accuses RSF of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’

Sudan army chief accuses RSF of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’
Updated 5 sec ago
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Sudan army chief accuses RSF of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’

Sudan army chief accuses RSF of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’
  • Rapid Support Forces, Sudanese Armed Forces have been in conflict since April 2023
  • More than 6.1m have been displaced and at least 15,000 killed, according to UN figures

NEW YORK CITY: Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, Sudan’s army chief and chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, on Thursday described the rebel Rapid Support Forces as a “terrorist group” for committing crimes against the country’s people, including “ethnic cleansing, forced displacement and genocide.

Since the ongoing conflict broke out between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces in April 2023, the paramilitary group has taken over the capital Khartoum and most of western Sudan.

The hostilities have killed at least 15,000 people and displaced more than 6.1 million, according to UN figures.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, Al-Burhan stressed his government’s commitment to protecting civilians and aid workers, as well as facilitating humanitarian assistance.

“We fully uphold international humanitarian law and measures geared towards the protection of civilians,” he said. “The protection of civilians is our responsibility.”

He said women and children “are being hit the hardest by violations committed in areas controlled by the militias. Some women and children have even been sold in marketplaces.”

Al-Burhan added that the council has been seeking a peaceful solution to the conflict. “So as to alleviate the suffering of our fellow Sudanese and to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance, we’ve opened our borders and airports,” he said. We’ve lifted all impediments to this aid being delivered.”

The Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan — signed by the US, Saudi Arabia, and representatives of Sudan’s two warring parties in May 2023 — aimed to achieve a ceasefire and facilitate humanitarian aid distribution.


Algeria slaps visa requirements on Moroccans, citing ‘Zionist espionage’

Algeria slaps visa requirements on Moroccans, citing ‘Zionist espionage’
Updated 33 min 4 sec ago
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Algeria slaps visa requirements on Moroccans, citing ‘Zionist espionage’

Algeria slaps visa requirements on Moroccans, citing ‘Zionist espionage’
  • A statement carried by Algeria’s official APS news agency charged that Morocco had “engaged in various actions that threaten Algeria’s stability“
  • Algiers broke diplomatic ties with Rabat in August 2021, citing “hostile acts” by its neighbor

ALGIERS: Algeria said Thursday it was imposing visa requirements on Moroccans, accusing its passport holders of criminal activity, including “Zionist espionage,” in a new downturn in fraught relations with its neighbor.
A statement carried by Algeria’s official APS news agency charged that Morocco had “engaged in various actions that threaten Algeria’s stability.”
It accused Morocco of having “deployed Zionist espionage agents holding Moroccan passports to freely enter the national territory.”
It also said Morocco had been conducting “multiple networks of organized crime, drug and human trafficking, not to mention smuggling and illegal immigration” within its borders.
Earlier this month, authorities in the Algerian city of Tlemcen said they had arrested seven people, including four Moroccans, accused of belonging to a spy ring.
Algiers broke diplomatic ties with Rabat in August 2021, citing “hostile acts” by its neighbor, months after the kingdom normalized relations with Israel.
In 2020, then US president Donald Trump recognized Morocco’s annexation of the disputed Western Sahara in return for Rabat normalizing relations with Israel.
The border between Algeria and Morocco has been closed for 30 years.
But travelers from Morocco did not need a visa to enter Algerian territory — despite the lack of direct flights — and neither do Algerians to enter Morocco.
There was no immediate response from Rabat to Thursday’s move by Algiers.
Algeria said it was “committed to preserving ties” with the “brotherly” Moroccan people, and blamed the Rabat authorities for recent diplomatic rifts.
“The Moroccan regime alone bears responsibility for the current deterioration of bilateral relations due to its hostile and aggressive actions against Algeria,” it said.
The two countries remain at odds over the Western Sahara and alleged Moroccan support for the Berber separatist movement MAK in Algeria.
The Polisario Front, which is backed by Algiers, has campaigned for the independence of Western Sahara since its colonial ruler Spain pulled out in 1975 but the territory is largely controlled by Morocco.
The United Nations, which has had a peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara since 1991, regards it as a “non-self-governing territory.”
After French President Emmanuel Macron said in July that “the only solution” was a Moroccan plan to grant the territory autonomy within the kingdom without the option of independence, Algeria recalled its ambassador.
Algiers also accuses Rabat of backing the MAK movement, which seeks independence for the Berber Kabylie region east of the capital.
Morocco described the 2021 decision to break off diplomatic relations as “completely unjustified.”


World must do more against ‘Houthi oppression’: Yemeni leader

World must do more against ‘Houthi oppression’: Yemeni leader
Updated 26 September 2024
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World must do more against ‘Houthi oppression’: Yemeni leader

World must do more against ‘Houthi oppression’: Yemeni leader
  • Rashad Al-Alimi: ‘Leniency with the enemies of peace leads to the most heinous wars’
  • He thanks Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and Oman, for their mediation efforts

LONDON: The chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council on Thursday urged the international community to do more to counter Houthi activities hampering international shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York on the 62nd anniversary of Yemen’s independence, Rashad Al-Alimi hailed “the courage of those young men and women and opinion leaders who challenge every year … the Houthi oppression machine supported by the Iranian regime.”

He urged world leaders to help Yemen with a “collective approach” in order to “reinforce its institutional capabilities to protect its territorial waters, and to secure all of its national territory.”

Yemen has endured a brutal civil war for over a decade, with the Houthis controlling great swathes of the country including the capital Sanaa.

The militia says its attacks on shipping passing through the region are in response to Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

Al-Alimi said his government is “committed to a comprehensive peace,” but this would only be possible if “international resolutions prohibiting the flow of Iranian weapons and drying up the funding sources (of) these militias” are enforced.

“History teaches us that leniency with the enemies of peace leads to the most heinous wars, to the most complex and costly ones,” he warned.

The Houthis have caused severe damage to Yemen’s economy due to its attacks on oil infrastructure, “depriving the Yemeni people of the needed revenues to pay salaries and basic services, which exacerbated the humanitarian crisis and led to an unprecedented devaluation of our national currency,” he added.

Al-Alimi thanked other Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and Oman, for their efforts in trying to mediate between the Yemeni government, based in the temporary capital Aden, and the Houthis, but said the militia has continued its operations.

He expressed concern that the Houthis would take “more oppressive measures against public freedoms” in the coming months, citing crackdowns on Yemen’s judiciary and the forced disappearances of “thousands of innocent men, women, children, (and the) elderly.”

He also noted the arrest by the Houthis of at least 13 UN aid workers since May, as well as dozens of other NGO and charity workers in Yemen, criticizing the UN for not moving its operations out of Houthi-controlled territory.

“There’s a widespread belief that the UN is responsible for giving these militias the opportunity to kidnap this unprecedented number of relief workers and NGO staff, as well as activists and civil society leaders, by not heeding the call of the Yemeni government to transfer their headquarters from Sanaa to the temporary capital Aden,” Al-Alimi said.

“The UN unintentionally enabled these terrorists to take their personnel as hostages, and to use them as a bargaining chip to blackmail the international community and to achieve negotiation concessions that can’t be accepted under any circumstances,” he added.

“This ongoing pattern of reckless escalation and response to the de-escalation initiatives requires the international community to take firm policies and push these militias towards the choice of peace.”

Al-Alimi stressed that the Houthis are waging an “economic war” by attacking oil tankers, facilities and other shipping vessels, which not only harms the Yemeni people but the wider region.

“The international community should seriously consider the devastating effects of these terrorist acts and to provide the vital infrastructure to defend maritime transportation vessels in Yemeni ports, to support the right of the Yemenis and of the Yemeni government to benefit from their resources and improve their living conditions,” he said.

“Protecting the arteries of the economy is necessary not only to recover and rebuild our future, but it’s important also for the stability of the region and for the security of energy in the long term.

“Therefore, we reiterate our hope for the international community to provide immediate, comprehensive support to address the devastating humanitarian conditions, to lay the foundations for a long-term economic recovery.

“This should include not only immediate humanitarian assistance to alleviate suffering, but should also include accountability mechanisms, especially in the regions under Houthi control. 

“It also requires greater investments in infrastructure, healthcare, education and sustainable development. It requires building the national capacities to curb the impact of climate change, which has left hundreds of victims and displaced thousands within the last two months.

“Yemen’s recovery is not only a national matter, it’s a regional and international need. The stability of Yemen is decisive to safeguard peace and stability in the region and trade routes in the Arabian and Red seas, as well as surrounding waterways, including the Suez Canal.”

Al-Alimi said Israel’s war in Gaza needs to be brought to an end if the region is to stabilize and prosper.

“The brutal Israeli war on the Palestinian people should cease immediately,” he said. “This is the first step to achieve peace and to eliminate Iran’s proxies, which are escalating the situation in the region. 

“Iran has been manipulating the just Palestinian cause, and this didn’t come from a vacuum, (but) from a history of blackmailing and of propaganda, only leading to undermining the peace process and reversing the gains of the Palestinian people and their right to establish a fully sovereign state,” he added.

“Ending the plight of the Palestinian people should be based on implementing international resolutions, especially the Arab Peace Initiative.

“And as is the case for both Yemen and Palestine, the only way to deter the wanton Israeli aggression on Lebanon will be through a firm stance from the international community and through the unity of all the Lebanese.”

Al-Alimi concluded by praising the work of certain key regional states, especially Saudi Arabia, in forging economic and social progress and curbing the spread of extremism.

“The Arab region is facing today a challenging test in building the state and in joining civilizational progress,” he said.

“The road to peace goes through the forces of moderation in the region, led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has been defending international resolutions and which extended a helping hand by hosting millions of those fleeing wars and armed conflicts.

“Therefore, we’re grateful for its measures, and the world should depend on them to lay the foundations of peace and stability, and to maximize our benefit from their economic and social development.”


Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 41,534

Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 41,534
Updated 26 September 2024
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Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 41,534

Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 41,534
  • The toll includes 39 deaths in the previous 24 hours
  • Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strike on school

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Civil defense rescuers in Gaza said an Israeli strike Thursday on a school-turned-shelter killed at least 15 people, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted a Hamas command center.
The vast majority of the besieged Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking shelter in school buildings.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said there were “15 martyrs, including children and women, and dozens wounded, some of them seriously, following an Israeli bombardment of Al-Faluja school in Jabalia camp in north Gaza.”
Bassal earlier said the death toll was seven.
The military said it carried out “precise strikes” targeting Hamas militants operating inside what it said was a command-and-control center at the Al-Faluja school.
AFP was unable to immediately verify what was targeted, and the military statement did not provide information on casualties.
Thursday’s attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for nearly a year.
A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported fatalities.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 41,534 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants, now in its 12th month.
The toll includes 39 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 96,092 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.