Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor

Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor
A handout picture released by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities (AFP)
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Updated 02 November 2024
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Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor

Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor
  • Some items such as jewelry in women’s burials were found intact, including a finely crafted necklace with 30 amethyst beads

CAIRO: Archaeologists from Egypt and the United States unearthed an ancient tomb with 11 sealed burials near the famed city of Luxor, Egyptian authorities said.
Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said in a statement Friday the tomb, which dates back to the Middle Kingdom (1938 B.C.-1630 B.C.), was found in the South Asasif necropolis, next to the Temple of Hatshepsut on the Nile’s West Bank in Luxor.
The joint Egyptian-American mission excavating the necropolis found coffins for men, women and children, suggesting that it was a family tomb used for generations during the 12th Dynasty and the beginning of the 13th Dynasty, said Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt.
He said ancient floods destroyed most of the burials’ wooden coffins and linen wrappings.
However, some items such as jewelry in women’s burials were found intact, including a finely crafted necklace with 30 amethyst beads and two cylindrical agate beads framing a hippo-head amulet, according to the statement.
Catherine Blakeney, chief American archaeologist with the mission, said they found two copper mirrors, one with a lotus-shaped handle, and the second with a unique design of Hathor, goddess of the sky, women, fertility and love in ancient Egypt.
The discovery came as Egypt has doubled efforts to attract more tourists, a significant source of foreign currency for the cash-strapped North African country. Tourism, which depends heavily on Egypt’s rich Pharaonic artifacts, suffered a long downturn after the political turmoil and violence that followed a 2011 uprising.
Last month, the Grand Egyptian Museum, a mega project near the famed Giza Pyramids, opened 12 halls exhibiting Pharaonic artifacts for visitors as a trial ahead of the yet-unannounced official opening.


A mother in Gaza hasn’t seen her daughter since Israeli troops raided their home

A mother in Gaza hasn’t seen her daughter since Israeli troops raided their home
Updated 4 sec ago
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A mother in Gaza hasn’t seen her daughter since Israeli troops raided their home

A mother in Gaza hasn’t seen her daughter since Israeli troops raided their home
  • Ajour is one of dozens of Palestinians that an Israeli legal group
DEIR AL-BALAH: Reem Ajour says she last saw her husband and then 4-year-old daughter in March, when Israeli soldiers raided a family home in northern Gaza. She is haunted by those chaotic last moments, when the soldiers ordered her to go – to leave behind Talal and Masaa, both wounded.
Eight months later, the 23-year-old mother still has no answers about their fate. The military says it does not have them. Troops leveled the house where they were staying soon after the raid.
“I am living and dead at the same time,” she said, breaking down in sobs.
Ajour is one of dozens of Palestinians that an Israeli legal group, Hamoked, is helping in their search for family members who went missing after being separated by Israeli soldiers during raids and arrests in the Gaza Strip.
Their cases — a fraction of the estimated thousands who have gone missing during the 14-month-long war — highlight a lack of accountability in how the Israeli military deals with Palestinians during ground operations in Gaza, Hamoked says.
Throughout the war, the military has conducted what amounts to a mass sifting of the Palestinian population as it raids homes and shelters and sends people through checkpoints. Troops round up and detain men, from dozens to several hundreds at a time, searching for any they suspect of Hamas ties, while forcing their families away, toward other parts of Gaza. The result is families split apart, often amid the chaos of fighting.
But the military has not made clear how it keeps track of everyone it separates, arrests or detains. Even if troops transfer Palestinians to military detention inside Israel, they can hold them incommunicado for more than two months – their whereabouts unknown to families or lawyers, according to rights groups.
When people vanish, it’s nearly impossible to know what happened, Hamoked says.
“We’ve never had a situation of mass forced disappearance from Gaza, with no information provided for weeks and weeks to families,” said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked. Israel’s High Court of Justice has refused to intervene to get answers, despite Hamoked’s petitions, she said.
Asked by The Associated Press about the cases of Ajour and two other families it interviewed, the Israeli military declined comment.
4-year-old Masaa Ajour was shot, then separated from her mother
The Ajours were sheltering at a home in Gaza City that belonged to Talal’s family after being displaced from their own house earlier in the war. Israeli troops raided the home on March 24, opening fire as they burst in, Ajour said.
Ajour, who was three months pregnant, was shot in the stomach. Talal was wounded in his leg, bleeding heavily. Masaa lay passed out, shot in the shoulder – though Ajour said she saw her still breathing.
As one soldier bandaged the little girl’s wound, another pointed his gun in Ajour’s face and told her to head out of Gaza City.
She said she pleaded that she couldn’t leave Masaa and Talal, but the soldier screamed: “Go south!”
With no choice, Ajour collected her younger son and went down to the street. “It was all in a blink of an eye. It was all so fast,” she said. Still bleeding, she walked for two and a half hours, clutching her son.
When they reached a hospital in central Gaza, doctors treated her stomach wound and found her fetus’ pulse. Weeks later, doctors found the pulse had gone. She miscarried.
Ajour said that several weeks later, a Palestinian released from a prison in southern Israel told her family he had heard her husband’s name called out over a loudspeaker among a list of detainees.
The rumor has kept her hope alive, but the military told Hamoked it had no record of Masaa or Talal being detained.
Another possibility is that they died on the scene, but no one has been able to search the rubble of the family’s building to determine if any bodies are there.
The storming of their building came as Israeli forces were battling Hamas fighters in surrounding streets while raiding nearby Shifa Hospital, where it claimed the militants were based. Troops cleared families out of nearby homes and often then destroyed or set the buildings ablaze, according to witnesses at the time.
The military itself may not know what happened to Ajour’s husband and daughter, said Montell of Hamoked.
“That illustrates a broader problem,” she said.
Ajour and her son now shelter in a tent camp outside the central Gaza town of Zuweida.
Masaa, she said, “was my first joy” — with blond hair and olive-colored eyes, a face “white like the moon.”
Masaa’s fifth birthday was in July, Ajour said, sobbing. “She turned five while she is not with me.”
Does the military document what troops do in Gaza?
Under a wartime revision to Israeli law, Palestinians from Gaza taken to military detention in Israel can be held for over two months without access to the outside world.
Israel says the law is necessary to handle the unprecedented number of detainees as it seeks to destroy Hamas following the Oct. 7 2023, attack on Israel that killed 1,200 and took around 250 people hostage inside Gaza. The military has transferred some 1,770 of its Gaza detainees to civilian prisons, according to rights groups, but it has not revealed the number still in its detention.
Milena Ansari, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Israel is obligated under international law to document what happens during every home raid and detention. But the military is not transparent about the information it collects on detainees or on how many it is holding, she said.
Hamoked has asked the military for the whereabouts of 900 missing Palestinians. The military confirmed around 500 of them were detained in Israel. It said it had no record of detaining the other 400.
The group petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice seeking answers in 52 cases, including that of Masaa and two other children, where witnesses testified that the missing were handled by troops before their disappearances.
“The judges just dismiss the cases, without even inquiring what measures might be necessary to prevent such cases in the future,” said Montell.
A court spokesperson said it often asks the military to provide additional information but isn’t authorized to investigate if the military says it is not detaining them.

Pakistan says Israeli assault on Syria ‘grave breach of international law’

Pakistan says Israeli assault on Syria ‘grave breach of international law’
Updated 22 min 14 sec ago
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Pakistan says Israeli assault on Syria ‘grave breach of international law’

Pakistan says Israeli assault on Syria ‘grave breach of international law’
  • After fall of Assad regime, Israeli troops moved into demilitarized zone inside Syria set up after 1973 Middle East war
  • Israeli military said on Tuesday a wave of air strikes had destroyed the bulk of Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday condemned what it called Israel’s seizure of Syrian territory, saying it was a “grave breach” of international law that Israeli troops had moved into a demilitarized zone inside Syria after Damascus fell to opposition forces last week. 

After the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad on Sunday ended 54 years of rule by the Assad family, Israeli troops moved into the demilitarized zone set up after the 1973 Middle East war, saying the incursion was a temporary measure to ensure border security. Israel aims to impose a “sterile defense zone” in southern Syria that would be enforced without a permanent troop presence, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday, as the military said a wave of air strikes had destroyed the bulk of Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles.

Over the past 48 hours, the Israeli military said jets had conducted more than 350 strikes on targets including anti-aircraft batteries, military airfields, weapons production sites, combat aircraft and missiles. In addition, missile vessels struck the Syrian naval facilities of Al-Bayda port and Latakia port, where 15 Syrian naval vessels were docked.

“Pakistan condemns in the strongest possible terms, Israeli aggression against Syria and its illegal seizure of the Syrian territory,” Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement. “This assault on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria is a grave breach of international law.”

She said Israel’s actions were a “dangerous” development in the already volatile Middle East region and violated United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, urging the international community, including the UNSC, to take immediate steps against Israel’s “repeated violations of aggression” against regional countries.

“Pakistan expresses full support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and rejects Israeli acquisition of territory by force,” she said. 

“We reaffirm our support for the UNSC Resolution 497, which declares Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights null and void and without international legal effect.”

The hilly, 1,200-square-kilometer (460 square-mile) Golan Heights is a fertile and strategic plateau that overlooks Israel’s Galilee region as well as Lebanon, and borders Jordan. The Heights were part of Syria until 1967, when Israel captured most of the plateau in the Six-Day War, occupying it and annexing it unilaterally in 1981. That annexation was not recognized by most countries. Syria still holds part of the Golan and has demanded that Israel withdraw from the rest of it. Israel has refused, citing security concerns.

With inputs from Reuters


Assad exit puts US at perilous crossroads in Syria

Assad exit puts US at perilous crossroads in Syria
Updated 11 December 2024
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Assad exit puts US at perilous crossroads in Syria

Assad exit puts US at perilous crossroads in Syria
  • Since the presidency of Barack Obama, the United States has walked a fine line on Syria that critics often derided as a non-policy
  • The Islamist movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has now led Assad's ouster, traces its roots to Syria's Al-Qaeda branch and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States

WASHINGTON: For more than a decade, the United States has sought to keep out of Syria's political debacle, seeing no viable partner. Islamist rebels' toppling of strongman Bashar al-Assad has forced a change of tune -- and a debate over just what US interests are.
Donald Trump, who returns to the White House in little more than a month, on the eve of Assad's fall called Syria "a mess" and stated in his plain-speaking style that the United States should not be involved.
Joe Biden's administration, after putting Syria on the backburner in a turbulent region, has offered a tacit rebuttal by stating that clear US interests are at stake -- including preventing Syria from fragmenting and avoiding a resurgence of the Daesh extremist group.
Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump's and Biden's statements could be combined and "together they make a kind of decent policy."
The United States needs to address real concerns about the Daesh group and Al-Qaeda but "as far as getting involved in arranging the politics of Syria, I think that no good can come from it," Cook said.
Since the presidency of Barack Obama, the United States has walked a fine line on Syria that critics often derided as a non-policy.
The United States questioned the legitimacy of Assad, demanding accountability for brutality in one of the 21st century's deadliest wars, but stopped short of prioritizing his departure due to suspicions about the main rebels.
The Islamist movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has now led Assad's ouster, traces its roots to Syria's Al-Qaeda branch and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.
Since Obama's time, the United States instead has allied itself in Syria with a smaller fighting force of the Kurdish minority -- over strenuous objections of neighboring Turkey, which backs HTS -- with a narrow mission to counter the Daesh group. Some 900 US troops remain in Syria.
Assad fell in a lighting surprise offensive as his protector Russia is bogged down in its invasion of Ukraine and after Israel's military heavily degraded Assad's other key supporters -- Iran and Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

How to deal with Islamists?

Robert Ford, the last US ambassador to Syria, helped spearhead the terrorist designation of HTS in 2012 but said that the group since then has not attacked US or Western targets and has instead fought Al-Qaeda and Daesh forces.
Ford also pointed with hope to post-victory statements by rebel chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, including welcoming international monitoring of any chemical weapons that are discovered.
"Can you imagine Osama bin Laden saying that?" said Ford, now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
"I'm not saying 'trust Jolani.' He's obviously authoritarian. He's obviously an Islamist who doesn't believe that Christians have an equal right to power as Muslims. But I sure as hell want to test him on some of these things," Ford said.
He said that the United States should encourage HTS, as well as other Syrian actors, to reach out and reassure the country's diverse communities including Christians, Kurds and Alawites -- the sect of the secular-oriented Assad.
Beyond that, Washington should take a back-seat and let Syrians sort out their future, he said.
"We should learn from the experience in Iraq that trying to impose exiles on a population traumatized by a brutal dictatorship and war is not a recipe for success," Ford said.
Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday offered US recognition to a future government that is "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian."

Weighing terrorist label

Trump in his first term, at the urging of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, abruptly said he would pull troops out of Syria. He backtracked after intense criticism at home and appeals from French President Emmanuel Macron, who pointed to the risk of Daesh filling the vacuum.
Trump has not indicated how he would change Syria policy this time. But he has shown no reluctance in the past to negotiate with foreign adversaries on the US blacklist, from Afghanistan's Taliban to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said there was no legal restriction on US contact with designated terrorists, although he indicated there was no direct dialogue with HTS.
Natasha Hall, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Syria could face "devastating economic and humanitarian consequences" unless the United States reconsiders the terrorist designation of HTS, which impedes aid groups.
"That said," she said, "if there isn't sort of an established framework for negotiations and good behavior now, before that designation is lifted, that could potentially also be a major mistake down the line for Syria's future."

 


Humanitarian aid to North Gaza mostly blocked for the last 2 months, UN says

Humanitarian aid to North Gaza mostly blocked for the last 2 months, UN says
Updated 11 December 2024
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Humanitarian aid to North Gaza mostly blocked for the last 2 months, UN says

Humanitarian aid to North Gaza mostly blocked for the last 2 months, UN says
  • Sigrid Kaag, the senior UN humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council behind closed doors Tuesday afternoon that civilians trying to survive in Gaza face an “utterly devastating situation”

UNITED NATIONS: Humanitarian aid to North Gaza, where Israel launched a ground offensive on Oct. 6, has largely been blocked for the past 66 days, the United Nations said Tuesday. That has left between 65,000 and 75,000 Palestinians without access to food, water, electricity or health care, according to the world body.
In the north, Israel has continued its siege on Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya with Palestinians living there largely denied aid, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, said. Recently, it said, about 5,500 people were forcibly displaced from three schools in Beit Lahiya to Gaza City.
Adding to the food crisis, only four UN-supported bakeries are currently operating throughout the Gaza Strip, all of them in Gaza City, OCHA said.
Sigrid Kaag, the senior UN humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council behind closed doors Tuesday afternoon that civilians trying to survive in Gaza face an “utterly devastating situation.”
She pointed to the breakdown in law and order and looting that has exacerbated a very dire situation and left the UN and many aid organizations unable to deliver food and other humanitarian essentials to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in need.
Kaag said she and other UN officials keep repeatedly asking Israel for access for convoys to North Gaza and elsewhere, to allow in commercial goods, to reopen the Rafah crossing from Egypt in the south, and to approve dual-use items.
Israel’s UN mission didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment
The UN has established the logistics for an operation across Gaza, she said, but there is no substitute for political will that humanitarians don’t possess.
“Member states possess it,” Kaag said. And this is what she urged Security Council members and keeps urging the broader international community to press for — the political will to address Gaza’s worsening humanitarian crisis.

 

 


In first contacts, US officials urge Syrian rebels to support inclusive government

In first contacts, US officials urge Syrian rebels to support inclusive government
Updated 11 December 2024
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In first contacts, US officials urge Syrian rebels to support inclusive government

In first contacts, US officials urge Syrian rebels to support inclusive government
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out on Tuesday criteria for Syria’s political transition, saying Washington would recognize a future Syrian government that amounts to a credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governing body

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration has urged the rebel group that led the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad not to assume automatic leadership of the country but instead run an inclusive process to form a transitional government, according to two US officials and a congressional aide briefed on the first US contacts with the group. The communications with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a group formerly allied with Al-Qaeda and designated a terrorist organization by the United States, are being conducted in coordination with Washington’s Middle East allies, including Turkiye. The administration is also in touch with President-elect Donald Trump’s team about the matter, one of the officials said. The discussions, which have taken place over the last several days, are part of a larger effort by Washington to coordinate with various groups inside Syria as it tries to navigate the chaotic aftermath of the sudden collapse of the Assad regime on Sunday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US has sent messages to the group to help guide early efforts to establish a formal governing structure for the country.
The sources declined to say whether the messages were being sent directly or via an intermediary. Washington believes the transitional government should represent the desires of the Syrian people and would not support HTS taking control without a formal process to select new leaders, the officials said.
The US National Security Council declined to comment.
TERRORIST DESIGNATION
The United States in 2013 designated HTS leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, a terrorist, saying Al-Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. It said the Nusra Front, the predecessor of HTS, carried out suicide attacks that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian vision. The official said the administration is not clear about Golani’s role in a future Syrian government — or whether he still holds extremist ideologies. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out on Tuesday criteria for Syria’s political transition, saying Washington would recognize a future Syrian government that amounts to a credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governing body.
Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are pushing the administration to consider lifting US sanctions on Syria, including sanctions specifically related to HTS, in exchange for the group meeting certain US demands, the congressional aide told Reuters.
The aide said there is a growing feeling among some members of Congress that the US will need to help a transitional government in Syria connect to the global economy and rebuild the country. Sanctions are preventing that from happening, the aide said. Washington is also in communication with HTS and other actors on the ground about battlefield operations, one of the officials said. Senior US officials have repeatedly said they intend to continue military operations in northeastern Syria against Daesh, to ensure the radical extremist group does not become a threat again, given the current power vacuum in the country. US forces in Syria will also continue to prevent Iranian-backed proxy groups from gaining ground, one of the officials said.