CAIRO: One of Egypt’s wealthiest businessmen, Naguib Sawiris, testified for the defense on Wednesday at the retrial of two Al-Jazeera television journalists, possibly boosting their standing in a case criticized from abroad.
Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were sentenced last year to between 7 and 10 years in prison for aiding a “terrorist organization,” a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood which was ousted from power by the army in mid-2013.
Their colleague Peter Greste, an Australian who was sentenced with them, was freed and deported earlier this year. All three denied the charges. In January, a court ordered a retrial, citing procedural flaws.
Fahmy, a naturalized Canadian who gave up his Egyptian citizenship, said outside the court on Wednesday that he and Sawiris, a member of Egypt’s minority Coptic Christian community, had known each other “for a long time.”
Fahmy, Greste and Mohamed covered Egyptian politics, including the rise to power of the Brotherhood after the Arab Spring uprising which left Egypt polarized. In court, Sawiris, an outspoken critic of the Brotherhood, personally vouched for Fahmy, who spent over a year in prison before being freed in February.
“Mohamed Fahmy has no relation to the Muslim Brotherhood organization and he is not a Muslim Brother,” Sawiris said.
The 60-year-old businessman recently told Reuters that Egypt should pay closer attention to improving human rights once the economy picks up, an unusual statement for someone in Egypt’s top elite to make in public.
Sawiris told the court that a distinction should be made between journalists and the network that employ them.
“The correspondents will go out and record the news and then send it to someone else who is responsible for putting that together into the news that is broadcast,” he said.
“The organization, not the correspondent, is responsible for what is broadcast.”
Top Egypt businessman Sawiris testifies at Al-Jazeera retrial
Top Egypt businessman Sawiris testifies at Al-Jazeera retrial
Strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs after Israeli evacuation call
- The Israeli army also called overnight for the evacuation of several areas in the south of the country
BEIRUT: Strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday shortly after the Israeli army called for the evacuation of certain neighborhoods, AFPTV footage showed.
In addition to the suburbs of the Lebanese capital, the Israeli army called overnight for the evacuation of several areas in the south of the country.
UN could meet with Israel PM despite warrant: UN
- UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Netanyahu have not spoken since the war started
- UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said UN policy on contacts with people facing arrest warrants dates back to a document issued in 2013
UNITED NATIONS: The arrest warrant issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza does not bar UN officials from meeting with him in the course of their work, the UN said Thursday.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Netanyahu have not spoken since the war started as a result of the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, although there have been contacts with the Israeli leader by UN officials in the region.
Guterres has been declared persona non grata by Israel, which accuses him of being biased in favor of the Palestinians. So talks between him and Netanyahu are very unlikely.
After the warrants issued Thursday by the International Criminal Court against Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said UN policy on contacts with people facing arrest warrants dates back to a document issued in 2013.
“The rule is that there should not be any contacts between UN officials and individuals subject to arrest warrants,” Dujarric said.
But limited contacts are allowed “to address fundamental issues, operational issues, and our ability to carry out our mandates,” he added.
In late October, at a summit of the BRICS countries in Russia, Guterres met with President Vladimir Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the ICP over the war in Ukraine.
That meeting, during which Guterres reiterated his condemnation of the Russian invasion, angered Ukraine.
Palestinians welcome ICC arrest warrants for Israeli PM and former defense minister
- Palestinian Authority calls on UN member states to ensure the warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, who are accused of war crimes, are acted upon
- The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrel, says decision is ‘binding’ on all members of the International Criminal Court
LONDON: Palestinians welcomed the decision by the International Criminal Court on Thursday to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister of defense, Yoav Gallant.
The Palestinian Authority said the court’s decision comes as Israeli forces continue to bomb Gaza in a conflict that has killed nearly 45,000 Palestinians since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, and it hopes the ruling will help to restore faith in international law, the official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported.
Netanyahu and Gallant are the first leading officials from a nation allied with the West against whom the ICC has issued arrest warrants since the court was established in July 2002. It also issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Deif, the head of the military wing of Hamas. Israeli authorities said in August he was killed by their forces in an attack the previous month, though Hamas have not confirmed this.
All three men are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their actions during the war in Gaza or the Oct. 7 attacks.
The PA said the decision to issue warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant was important because Palestinians “are being subjected to genocide and war crimes, represented by starvation as a method of warfare,” as well as mass displacement and collective punishment.
The PA, which signed up to the ICC in 2015, called on all UN member states to ensure the warrants are acted upon and to “cut off contact and meetings with the international wanted men, Netanyahu and Gallant.” Israel is not a member of the ICC.
The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrel, posted a message on social media platform X on Thursday in which he described the court’s decisions as “binding” on all those who have signed up to it.
“These decisions are binding on all states party to the Rome Statute (the treaty that established the ICC), which includes all EU member states,” he wrote.
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister who has spent 17 years in office during three spells in charge since 1996, denounced the decision by the ICC to issue the warrant as “antisemitic.”
He said it would “have serious consequences for the court and those who will cooperate with it in this matter.”
Between bomb craters: Taxis stuck on war-hit Lebanon-Syria border
MASNAA, Lebanon: Stuck in no man’s land on the war-hit Lebanon-Syria border, cab driver Fadi Slika now scrapes a living ferrying passengers between two deep craters left by Israeli air strikes.
The journey is just 2 km, but Slika has no other choice — his taxi is his only source of income.
“My car is stuck between craters: I can’t reach Lebanon or return to Syria. Meanwhile, we’re under threat of (Israeli) bombardment,” said the 56-year-old.
“I work and sleep here between the two holes,” he said.
A dual Lebanese-Syrian national, Slika has been living in his car, refusing to abandon it when it broke down until a mechanic brought a new engine.
His taxi is one of the few that has been operating between the two craters since Israeli strikes in October effectively blocked traffic on the Masnaa crossing.
The bombed area has become a boon for drivers of tuk-tuks, who can navigate the craters easily.
A makeshift stall, the Al-Joura (pit in Arabic) rest house, and a shop are set up nearby.
Slika went for 12 days without work while waiting for his taxi to be fixed. The car has become his home. A warm blanket covers its rear seats against eastern Lebanon’s cold winters, and a big bag of pita bread sits on the passenger side.
Before being stranded, Slika made about $100 for trips from Beirut to Damascus.
Now, an average fare between the craters is just $5.50 each way, though he said he charged more.
On Sept. 23, Israel intensified its aerial bombing of Lebanon and later sent in ground troops, nearly a year after Hezbollah initiated limited exchanges of fire in support of Hamas amid the Gaza war.
Since then, Israel has bombed several land crossings with Syria out of service.
It accuses Hezbollah of using what are key routes for people fleeing the war in Lebanon to transfer weapons from Syria.
Amid the hardship of the conflict, more than 610,000 people have fled from Lebanon to Syria, mostly Syrians, according to Lebanese authorities.
Undeterred by attacks, travelers still trickle through Masnaa, traversing the two craters that measure about 10 meters deep and 30 meters wide.
On the other side of the road, Khaled Khatib, 46, was fixing his taxi, its tires splattered with mud and hood coated in dust.
“After the first strike, I drove from Syria and parked my car before the crater. When the second strike hit, I got stuck between the two holes,” he said, sweat beading as he looked under the hood.
“We used to drive people from Damascus to Beirut. Now, we take them from one crater to another.”
Khatib doesn’t charge passengers facing tough times, he said, adding he had been displaced from southern Beirut, hammered by Israeli raids since September. He moved back to his hometown near the Masnaa crossing.
Despite harsh times, a sense of camaraderie reigns.
The drivers “became like brothers. We eat together at the small stall every day ... and we help each other fix our cars,” he said.
Mohamed Yassin moved his coffee stall from the Masnaa crossing closer to the pit after the strike, offering breakfast, lunch, and coffee. “We try to help people as much as possible,” he said.
Farther from the Lebanese border, travelers crossed the largest of the two crevasses, wearing plastic coverings on their shoes to avoid slipping in the mud.
A cab driver on a mound called out, “Taxi to Damascus!” while tuk-tuks and trucks ferried passengers, bags, and mattresses across.
Nearby, Aida Awda Mubarak, a Syrian mother of six, haggled with a tuk-tuk driver over the $1 fare.
The 52-year-old said she was out of work and needed to see her son after the east Lebanon town where he lives was hit by Israeli strikes.
“Sometimes we just can’t afford to pay for a tuk-tuk or a cab,” she said.
Netanyahu says ICC warrant won’t stop Israel defending itself
- “No outrageous anti-Israel decision will prevent us — and it will not prevent me — from continuing to defend our country in every way,” Netanyahu said
- The premier is accused alongside his former defense minister Yoav Gallant of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity“
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court over his conduct of the Gaza war would not stop him defending Israel.
“No outrageous anti-Israel decision will prevent us — and it will not prevent me — from continuing to defend our country in every way,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “We will not yield to pressure,” he vowed.
The premier is accused alongside his former defense minister Yoav Gallant of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” for Israel’s actions in Gaza.
He described Thursday’s decision as a “dark day in the history of nations.”
“The International Criminal Court in The Hague, which was established to protect humanity, has today become the enemy of humanity,” he said, adding that the accusations were “utterly baseless.”
Israel has been fighting in Gaza since October 2023, when a cross-border attack by Hamas militants resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Its retaliatory campaign has led to the deaths of 44,056 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
UN agencies have warned of a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including possible famine, due to a lack of food and medicines.
The court said it had found “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore “criminal responsibility” for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
Netanyahu said the court was accusing Israel of “fictitious crimes,” while ignoring “the real war crimes, horrific war crimes being committed against us and against many others around the world.”
In addition to Netanyahu and Gallant, the court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military wing chief Mohammed Deif, who Israel said was killed in an air strike last July.
Hamas has never confirmed his death.
Netanyahu mocked the court’s decision to issue a warrant for “the body of Mohammed Deif.”
