Eight-year-old found dead in Turkiye after national search effort

The body of Narin Guran was found in a bag in a river in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, around one kilometer from the village where she lived with her family. (@KadinCinayeti)
The body of Narin Guran was found in a bag in a river in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, around one kilometer from the village where she lived with her family. (@KadinCinayeti)
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Updated 08 September 2024
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Eight-year-old found dead in Turkiye after national search effort

The body of Narin Guran was found in a bag in a river in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir.
  • “Narin Guran was found dead wearing the same clothes as the last time she was seen,” said Zorluoglu

ANKARA: The body of an eight-year-old girl who had been missing in Turkiye for 19 days has been found after an enormous manhunt, the interior minister said on Sunday.
The body of Narin Guran was found in a bag in a river in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, around one kilometer from the village where she lived with her family, Diyarbakir governor Murat Zorluoglu told reporters.
“Unfortunately, the lifeless body of Narin, who went missing in the village of Tavsantepe... has been found,” Turkish interior minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
She disappeared on August 21, sparking a huge search effort in Turkiye, with a number of well-known figures joining a social media campaign called “Find Narin.”
“Narin Guran was found dead wearing the same clothes as the last time she was seen,” said Zorluoglu.
“Based on the first observations, she was put into a bag after she was killed. The bag was then placed in the river, hidden under branches and rocks so as not to raise suspicion,” he added.
Diyarbakir prosecutors have detained 21 people, said Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc.
The girl’s uncle was arrested last week on suspicion of murder and “deprivation of liberty.”
“Our president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is following the case closely to guarantee that the ongoing investigation continues thoroughly and that those who took Narin’s life answer before the law,” the president’s communications director Fahrettin Altun said on X.
Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish party DEM has called for a march to take place in Diyarbakir on Sunday evening.
“Narin was killed in an organized manner. Those responsible for this murder, which has saddened us all, must be revealed and held accountable before an impartial and independent justice system,” DEM wrote on X.
Tunc said on X that “those responsible for Narin’s death will be brought to justice.”


Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike

Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike
Updated 10 sec ago
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Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike

Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike
  • Hezbollah said on Monday around midday that it had launched rockets at a naval base near Haifa before a further “big rocket salvo” in the early evening at the northern Israeli town of Safed
  • Since Israel on September 23 escalated its bombing against targets in Lebanon the war has killed at least 1,315 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely to be higher

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed to hit Hezbollah without mercy, a day after the Iran-backed Lebanese group’s deadliest strike on Israel since the start of the war in late September.
Hezbollah’s drone attack on an Israeli base killed four soldiers on Sunday, while volunteer rescuers said another 60 people were injured.
“We will continue to mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon — including Beirut,” Netanyahu said on a visit to the base near Binyamina, south of Haifa.
Hezbollah said it launched the “squadron of attack drones” in response to Israeli attacks, including one last week that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.
Since Israel on September 23 escalated its bombing against targets in Lebanon the war has killed at least 1,315 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely to be higher.
Prior to Netanyahu’s comments, new air strikes had already occurred against targets around Lebanon, including one in a northern Christian-majority village which killed at least 21 people on Monday, according to the health ministry.
Hezbollah said on Monday around midday that it had launched rockets at a naval base near Haifa before a further “big rocket salvo” in the early evening at the northern Israeli town of Safed.
Its fighters were also “engaged in violent clashes” in the Lebanese frontier village of Aita Al-Shaab, and were fighting elsewhere as well, it said.
Air raid sirens sounded across central Israel in the early evening, including in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv, the military said, after it earlier reported the interception of two drones approaching from Syria.

After almost a year of tit-for-tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israeli forces over the Lebanon border, Israel intensified its strikes against targets in Lebanon late last month before sending ground troops across the frontier.
Israel wants to push back Hezbollah in order to secure its northern boundary and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return home safely.
Hezbollah says its strikes are in support of Palestinian militants Hamas who attacked Israel on October 7 last year, triggering the ongoing war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The International Organization for Migration said last week it had verified 690,000 people displaced by the war in Lebanon.
Israel’s deadly air strike on the village of Aito in northern Lebanon on Monday marked a departure from the usual pattern, being located in a mostly Christian area and far from areas usually bombed.
Israel has focused its firepower mostly on Hezbollah strongholds in Shiite Muslim-majority areas, including in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
An AFP photographer in Aito said the strike levelled a residential building. Body parts were scattered in the rubble.
In the southern border town of Marjayoun, civil defense chief Anis Abla told AFP his rescue teams were exhausted.
“Our rescue missions are becoming more and more difficult, because the strikes are never-ending and target us,” he said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross’s regional director, Nicolas Von Arx, appealed for the protection of ambulances and other health facilities and personnel.
“Attacks on health facilities are deeply worrying,” he said.
Israel faced new criticism over injuries and damage sustained by the UN peacekeeping force which has been deployed in Lebanon since 1978 after a previous Israeli invasion.
Netanyahu on Monday said Israel’s military “is doing its utmost to prevent such incidents” and repeated his request that the peacekeepers “get out of harm’s way.”
UNIFIL has refused.

Prime Minister Simon Harris of Ireland, which has troops in the UNIFIL mission, on Monday told Israeli President Isaac Herzog in a phone call that UNIFIL has “a clear mandate from the Security Council, and that it must be allowed to carry out its functions unimpeded,” Harris’s office said.
The Hamas attack on Israel last year which triggered war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The number includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, 42,289 people, the majority civilians. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
Since the Gaza war began hundreds of Palestinians have also been killed in the occupied West Bank. On Monday Palestinian officials said Israeli forces killed two more during a raid. Israel said it was “looking into the reports.”
In Gaza, despite escalating Israeli military operations in central and northern areas, the second round of a polio vaccination campaign for hundreds of thousands of children began on Monday.
With the war there, and in Lebanon, showing no sign of abating, fears of even wider regional conflict have seen Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas, engage in diplomatic efforts with allies and other powers.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met a senior official from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement in Oman, his latest stop on a regional diplomatic tour.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned of “a regional war that will be costly for everyone,” during a meeting with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday.
Israel is still weighing its response to an October 1 missile attack by Iran, the latest of two it has carried out against Israel this year.
 

 


China urges caution in Israel-Iran tensions, calls for ceasefire

The grandmother of Palestinian boy Yaman Al-Zaanin, who lost his life in an Israeli strike on a school-turned shelter, reacts.
The grandmother of Palestinian boy Yaman Al-Zaanin, who lost his life in an Israeli strike on a school-turned shelter, reacts.
Updated 14 October 2024
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China urges caution in Israel-Iran tensions, calls for ceasefire

The grandmother of Palestinian boy Yaman Al-Zaanin, who lost his life in an Israeli strike on a school-turned shelter, reacts.
  • In a phone conversation with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Wang also urged Israel to ensure the safety of UNIFIL personnel

BEIJING: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on all parties involved in tensions between Israel and Iran on Monday to exercise caution and avoid escalating the situation.
In a phone conversation with Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Wang also urged Israel to ensure the safety of personnel of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), a foreign ministry statement said.
He also reiterated Beijing’s position on the Gaza conflict, calling for an immediate, complete and permanent ceasefire.
Katz said that during the call he had “clarified that Iran is the primary source for undermining stability in the Middle East” and said that Iran poses a direct threat through its proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
Katz said he had expected that China would express “a balanced and fair position in relation to the war,” citing the economic cooperation ties between the two countries “and the fact that approximately 20,000 workers from China continue to work in Israel during the...war.”


Bus carrying university students crashes, killing 12 in Egypt’s northeast

A bus carrying university students crashed and overturned on a highway in northeastern Egypt, killing 12 people.
A bus carrying university students crashed and overturned on a highway in northeastern Egypt, killing 12 people.
Updated 14 October 2024
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Bus carrying university students crashes, killing 12 in Egypt’s northeast

A bus carrying university students crashed and overturned on a highway in northeastern Egypt, killing 12 people.
  • Students from the Suez-based Galala University were on board, returning home using the Ain Sokhna highway, when the accident happened

CAIRO: A bus carrying university students crashed and overturned on a highway in northeastern Egypt, killing 12 people and injuring 33 others, the health ministry said Monday night.
Students from the Suez-based Galala University were on board, returning home using the Ain Sokhna highway, when the accident happened. The ministry didn’t reveal what caused the crash.
The statement said 28 ambulances rushed to the site and transported the injured to the Suez Medical Complex, but didn’t disclose their condition.
Deadly traffic accidents claim thousands of lives every year in Egypt, which has a poor transportation safety record. Speeding, bad roads, and poor enforcement of traffic laws mostly cause the collisions.


Turkiye’s Erdogan blasts UN over Israeli attacks on peacekeepers

Vehicles from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon patrol in Marjayoun in southern Lebanon on October 12, 2024. (AFP)
Vehicles from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon patrol in Marjayoun in southern Lebanon on October 12, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 14 October 2024
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Turkiye’s Erdogan blasts UN over Israeli attacks on peacekeepers

Vehicles from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon patrol in Marjayoun in southern Lebanon on October 12, 2024. (AFP)
  • Erdogan said the UN was also to blame for failing to sanction Israel over its wars with Hezbollah and with Hamas in Gaza
  • “The image of the UN which cannot protect its own personnel is shameful and worrying,” Erdogan said

ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday hit out at the United Nations for failing to prevent Israel from firing at its peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.
At least five UNIFIL peacekeepers have been wounded in recent days as fighting ranges between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Erdogan said the UN was also to blame for failing to sanction Israel over its wars with Hezbollah and with Hamas in Gaza.
“The image of the UN which cannot protect its own personnel is shameful and worrying,” Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel, said in a televised address.
“Frankly, we ask ourselves what the (UN) Security Council is waiting for to stop Israel.
“Can you believe it? The Israeli tanks penetrate into the UNIFIL zone, attack peacekeeping soldiers, even wounding some of them, but the UN Security Council decides to just watch all this criminality from its stands — that’s what we call powerlessness.”
The UN condemned the attacks with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying they “may constitute a war crime.”
He said that Israeli soldiers had “deliberately breached” a UNIFIL compound.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on Guterres to move peacekeepers out of “harm’s way,” saying Hezbollah was using them as “human shields.”
UNIFIL, a mission of about 9,500 troops of various nationalities created following Israel’s 1978 invasion of Lebanon, has refused to leave its positions.
It has accused the Israeli military of “deliberately” firing on its positions.


US aid officials attend meetings in Israeli prison accused of torture, sexual violence

US aid officials attend meetings in Israeli prison accused of torture, sexual violence
Updated 14 October 2024
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US aid officials attend meetings in Israeli prison accused of torture, sexual violence

US aid officials attend meetings in Israeli prison accused of torture, sexual violence
  • ‘I can’t sleep at night knowing that it’s going on,’ USAID official tells The Guardian
  • Lawyer: ‘The situation there is more horrific than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo’

LONDON: US aid officials are attending daily meetings at Israel’s Sde Teiman base, where widespread use of torture and sexual violence is employed against Palestinian prisoners, reports allege.

It follows a decision in July to move Israel’s humanitarian relief hub to the desert base, three USAID officials told The Guardian.

Israel consolidated all of its Gaza aid oversight bodies into the Joint Coordination Board, which operates at Sde Teiman and coordinates with the US, UN and various NGOs.

The US has a regular presence at the site as part of its mission to facilitate urgent humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Sde Teiman was chosen by Israel as a holding facility for Palestinian prisoners in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

But extensive reporting by human rights groups, involving eyewitness accounts, has revealed that thousands of Palestinians who passed through the facility were subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse, torture and sexual violence.

Despite this, two USAID officials continue to visit Sde Teiman daily for meetings with Israeli and UN staff as part of the JCB.

A USAID official told The Guardian: “I can’t sleep at night knowing that it’s going on. It’s another form of psychological torture to make someone work there.”

It is unclear whether USAID staff have witnessed the section of Sde Teiman where Palestinian prisoners are detained, with one report saying the JCB operates out of “a handful of makeshift trailers.”

The reports issued by human rights groups on Sde Teiman cite whistleblowers and former prisoners to allege a consistent pattern of brutality by Israeli soldiers at the site.

The violence against Palestinian prisoners includes rape, beatings, electrocutions and force-feeding.

One Israeli doctor who worked at the facility reported that prisoners were “routinely” amputated due to aggressive handcuffing.

Since Oct. 7, about 4,000 Palestinians have passed through the prison, with at least 35 dying, the New York Times reported in May.

Khaled Mahajneh, a lawyer who visited Sde Teiman, told +972 Magazine: “The situation there is more horrific than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.”

Israel has claimed that only 24 prisoners remain in the facility, and that a planned new wing would improve conditions.

But Tal Steiner, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, told The Guardian: “We have no indication that the living conditions in the camp have indeed been improved, as our lawyers have still not had access to the camp to assess that.”

One of the most controversial incidents at Sde Teiman took place earlier this year when a Palestinian prisoner was left in critical condition after being gang-raped by 10 Israeli soldiers, who were later investigated.

The decision to launch an investigation led to violent rioting and attacks by Israeli groups in support of the soldiers.

Israel moved its humanitarian oversight body to Sde Teiman from Hatzor airbase north of Gaza.

Weeks before, USAID chief Samantha Power visited the airbase, saying: “I think what’s happening in this room is incredibly important.”

Yet sources told The Guardian that the relocation has been a “closely guarded secret,” with internal communication listing the new site as nearby Beersheva instead of Sde Teiman.

Power, who previously served as US ambassador to the UN and senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, has faced mounting criticism within USAID over her failure to permit more aid to Gaza by way of agreements with Israel.

In March, 76 staffers sent a letter to a USAID bureau condemning the agency’s “silence on the suffering of Gaza.”

In response to The Guardian, USAID claimed that it is “working closely to ensure more effective dialogue between humanitarian partners and the Israeli government to improve the safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of humanitarian movements into and throughout Gaza. Due to security considerations, we do not comment on the specific locations of our staff.”