Bombardment in Mosul takes heavy toll on civilians

A displaced Iraqi boy who fled his home with his family carries a school bag at Khazer camp, in this file photo. (Reuters)
Updated 11 April 2017
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Bombardment in Mosul takes heavy toll on civilians

IRBIL: Since she got struck by mortar shrapnel in Mosul just over a week ago, 10-year-old Nabaa has not been able to speak. A shard in her skull damaged part of her brain and doctors are not sure if she will ever be able to speak again.
The girl’s family had been forced to flee their home in the northern Iraqi city because fighting was raging around them, government artillery and helicopters were bombarding their neighborhood, and their food supplies were running out, said Nabaa’s mother, Umm Abdul-Rahman.
But as they neared Iraqi military lines the night of March 31, mortars hit, wounding Nabaa and her two brothers, 7-year-old Basem and 11-year-old Abdul-Rahman. The mother said she saw three others lying wounded on the ground after the strike but she did not know their fate.
The family is among a large number of civilians who have been caught in the middle of what appears to be a far more brutal battle over the western half of Mosul than the preceding fight for the east.
In the west, Iraqi government forces trying to wrest back the city from Daesh are relying on heavier firepower, including extensive barrages with mortars, rocket launchers and some improvised systems without guidance mechanisms.
While the east was retaken by Iraq’s special forces, much of the fighting in the west is done by militarized police units that have less experience in urban battle. Iraqi forces recaptured the east at the end of January and moved against the west in mid-February.
“They see resistance and implement a carpet-bombing approach to advance. They do this to reduce their own casualties. This is disastrous for the civilians,” said Col. Ahmed Shawki, a military analyst and retired Iraqi army officer based in the northern city of Irbil.
At the same time, Daesh militants in some cases are preventing civilians from leaving, keeping them in harm’s way as shields.
The number of casualties is hard to establish because only some of the wounded reach hospitals and most of the dead are buried immediately. At least 300 people were killed in western Mosul up to the beginning of April, according to the UN. The World Health Organization says 1,683 wounded civilians were referred to hospitals between Feb. 18 and April 8. Johannes Schad, a doctor in West Irbil Emergency Hospital, said that about 60 percent of the victims have blast injuries, mostly from shelling.
Some 1,600 civilians were killed or wounded during the 100 days of fighting to recapture Mosul’s less densely populated east. Dr. Shalan Ali, the Health Ministry official in charge of Ninevah province, thinks up to a thousand have already been killed in the west.
The worst single attack came on March 17, when an airstrike by the US-led coalition hit a building in the New Mosul neighborhood, killing more than 100 civilians who were sheltering inside. The US military is investigating the strike, and officials say Daesh militants — who have been seen elsewhere forcing civilians into buildings to use them as shields — may have played a role.
The shelling in western Mosul has been much more intense than in the east.
One police artillery unit based outside the city said they alone fired up to 200 shells a day. Police Lt. Col. Younes Sultan Jadalla told The Associated Press that they use drone footage to choose targets and only fire if there are no civilians nearby.
Drone footage taken by the AP in the Dawasa neighborhood of western Mosul on April 5 shows entire streets reduced to rubble, with deep craters dug up by airstrikes. By comparison, eastern Mosul was generally preserved, with damage mainly concentrated on individual buildings and road junctions.
Basem Mohammed, a resident of western Mosul’s Nablous neighborhood, said Daesh militants had a position in a nearby park from which they fired at Iraqi forces. In an apparent response from government forces, his street was hit by mortars on March 8, with shells hitting his neighbors’ houses, wounding several people.
He was wounded in the leg by mortar fire a week later, as he and his family fled.
Much of the destruction is wrought by Iraqi and coalition air power. An analysis of bombing in western Mosul between March 8 and 25, conducted by Human Rights Watch and using satellite imagery, identified 780 impact sites that may have been caused by large, air-delivered munitions, resulting in the destruction of hundreds of buildings. The analysis called the destruction comparable in intensity to the Russian-Syrian air attacks on Aleppo in September and October last year.
Daesh militants, too, are shelling the areas that have slipped out of their control.
Among their victims is Nashwan Jamal, 25, who was hit on March 11 in the Tel Alruman neighborhood, four days after it was taken by Iraqi special forces. Jamal, his brother and a friend were sitting on the roof of their home when a mortar landed, wounding him in the leg.
Several people who escaped western Mosul told the AP that Daesh forbade people to leave. Omar Marwan said Daesh militants told people on his street that they had planted a bomb so that they would not flee.
“They told us, stay in the house, you can’t get out. One of them even said, you have to stay until it is destroyed. No one can leave,” said Alaa Hassan, 27, from the New Mosul neighborhood. “We tried to escape when they were busy fighting. But then we ran into them and they shot at us.”
Alaa Hassan’s wife was killed in the March 17 airstrike, and his 4-year-old daughter, Hawra, was badly burned.
Hawra’s grandmother, Alia Ali, said the militants would not let them leave even after the airstrike on their house. “I went to them and told them we have a burned child and we need to take her out and they said no. They said, you have to stay here with us. And you will die here with us.” They reached Iraqi lines two days later.


Britain says Israel’s detention of two UK MPs ‘unacceptable’

British Foreign Minister David Lammy speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on August 15, 2024. (AFP file photo)
Updated 9 sec ago
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Britain says Israel’s detention of two UK MPs ‘unacceptable’

  • “I have made clear to my counterparts in the Israeli government that this is no way to treat British Parliamentarians, and we have been in contact with both MPs tonight to offer our support,” Lammy said

LONDON: Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said Saturday it was “unacceptable” and deeply concerning that Israel had detained two UK lawmakers and denied them entry.
Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed, from the governing Labour Party, flew from London to Israel but were blocked from entering the country and deported, British media reported.
“It is unacceptable, counterproductive, and deeply concerning that two British MPs on a parliamentary delegation to Israel have been detained and refused entry by the Israeli authorities,” Lammy said in a statement.
“I have made clear to my counterparts in the Israeli government that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians, and we have been in contact with both MPs tonight to offer our support.
“The UK government’s focus remains securing a return to the ceasefire and negotiations to stop the bloodshed, free the hostages and end the conflict in Gaza.”
Since renewed military operations last month ended a short-lived truce in its war with Hamas, Israel has pushed to seize territory in the Gaza Strip in what it said was a strategy to force militants to free hostages still in captivity.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 1,249 people have been killed since Israel resumed intense bombing last month, bringing the overall death toll since the war began to 50,609.
The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

 


Tunisia shuts down large migrant camps

Updated 05 April 2025
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Tunisia shuts down large migrant camps

  • The camps had prompted anger from residents in nearby villages, raising pressure on the authorities

EI AMRA, Tunisia: Tunisia has dismantled camps housing thousands of undocumented migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, police said, following a campaign against them on social media.

Around 20,000 migrants had set up tents in fields in the eastern regions of El-Amra and Jebeniana, said national guard spokesman Houcem Eddine Jebabli.

He said around 4,000 people of various nationalities had left one of the camps cleared by authorities, and operations would continue over the coming days.

Some of the migrants had “dispersed into the countryside,” with pregnant women and the infirm taken care of by the health authorities, he added.

The camps had prompted anger from residents in nearby villages, raising pressure on the authorities.

Jebabli said locals had taken legal action over the occupation of their olive groves by the migrants.

“It was our duty to end all the disorder,” he said.

Tunisian President Kais Saied on March 25 called on the International Organization for Migration to accelerate voluntary returns for irregular migrants to their home countries.

In recent years, Tunisia has become a key departure point in North Africa for migrants crossing the perilous Mediterranean Sea in hopes of reaching Europe.

Italy has agreements with Tunisia and Libya to provide funding in exchange for help stemming departures.

Italy plans to invest €20 million ($22 million) in a new project to help Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia send irregular migrants from their territories back to the migrants’ countries of origin.

The government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has vowed to cut irregular migration to Italy’s shores from North Africa — the majority of whom depart from Libya and Tunisia.

But many of the migrants who depart hail from other countries, especially sub-Saharan African countries.

Italy’s new plan “focuses on strengthening the institutional and administrative-managerial capacities of the partner countries,” with the involvement of 400 officials, Italy’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a recent statement.

Irregular migration would be better addressed “through the improvement and development of assisted voluntary repatriations from Algeria, Libya and Tunisia to the countries of origin,” it said.

It said the project would collaborate with the IOM to ensure migrants’ rights.

The ministry said the plan would benefit “around 3,300 of the most vulnerable migrants, carrying out their repatriation to their countries of origin sustainably and effectively.”

It said Italy’s Agency for Development Cooperation, which helps carry out development activities, would provide technical support.

The agency has also been charged with another plan targeted at the “socio-economic reintegration of returning migrants,” tapping Italian companies and civil society groups, it said.

On Wednesday, Libyan authorities said they would suspend the work of 10 international humanitarian groups, including Doctors Without Borders, accusing them of a plan to “settle migrants” from other parts of Africa in the country.


Israeli general condemns West Bank settler riot, ‘vandalism’ by troops

Updated 05 April 2025
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Israeli general condemns West Bank settler riot, ‘vandalism’ by troops

  • Major General Avi Bluth addressed a “series of unusual incidents” while visiting Israeli police officers in the West Bank
  • Bluth “emphasized that these are exceptional incidents that must be addressed with the necessary severity“

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Israeli military’s top commander in the occupied West Bank condemned recent violence by Israeli settlers against police and “unacceptable” conduct by soldiers, in a video shared by the army on Friday.
A military statement said that Major General Avi Bluth addressed a “series of unusual incidents” while visiting Israeli police officers in the West Bank, near the site of a riot involving settlers earlier this week.
Israeli police said they had arrested 17 suspects over the “violent riot” on Wednesday near the settlement outpost of Givat Habaladim, northeast of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, during which Israeli settlers threw stones at officers and torched a police car.
Bluth “emphasized that these are exceptional incidents that must be addressed with the necessary severity,” the military statement said.
Referring to the settlers’ attack on Israeli forces, Bluth said in the video: “Beyond the fact that this is a red line that has been crossed and will be dealt with seriously, there is no greater act of ingratitude.”
Rights groups often accuse the army of protecting Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and the United Nations has said that settler attacks against Palestinians are taking place in a climate of “impunity.”
In a recent incident Bluth did not address in the video, the army said that this week “dozens of Israeli civilians... set fire to property” in the Palestinian village of Duma, injuring several people.
The Israeli general mentioned “vandalism and graffiti” by reserve soldiers during a military raid on Wednesday, in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem.
While a major offensive since January has focused on refugee camps in the northern West Bank, Dheisheh in the south has seen an uptick in Israeli army raids in recent weeks.
Images shared on social media showed vandalized apartments, where furniture was broken and Israeli nationalist slogans spray painted on walls.
Bluth said that “the conduct in Dheisheh by our reserve soldiers is not what we stand for.”
“Vandalism and graffiti during an operational mission are, from our perspective, unacceptable incidents. It is inconceivable that IDF (army) soldiers do not act according to their commanders’ orders,” he said.
Since war began in October 2023 in the Gaza Strip — a separate Palestinian territory — violence has soared in the West Bank.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 917 Palestinians, including militants, in the West Bank since October 2023, according to Palestinian health ministry figures.
Palestinian attacks and clashes during military raids have killed at least 33 Israelis, including soldiers, over the same period, according to official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, home to about three million Palestinians, since 1967.
Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, around 490,000 Israelis live there in settlements and outposts that are illegal under international law. Outposts are also illegal under Israeli law.


Macron to hold Gaza summit with Egyptian, Jordanian leaders

Updated 05 April 2025
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Macron to hold Gaza summit with Egyptian, Jordanian leaders

  • The French president is expected in Cairo on Sunday evening
  • The trilateral summit will be held the same day

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said he would hold a trilateral summit on the situation in Gaza with Egypt President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
Israel has pushed to seize territory in Gaza since the collapse of a short-lived truce in its war with Hamas, in what it has called a strategy to force the militants to free hostages still in captivity.
Simultaneously, Israel has escalated attacks on Lebanon and Syria.
“In response to the Gaza emergency and during my visit to Egypt at President El-Sisi’s invitation, we will hold a trilateral summit with the Egyptian president and the King of Jordan,” Macron wrote on X ahead of his trip.
The French president is expected in Cairo on Sunday evening, where he will hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart on Monday morning.
The trilateral summit will be held the same day in the Egyptian capital, according to Macron’s office.
On Tuesday, Macron will also visit the Egyptian port of El-Arish, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the Gaza Strip, to meet humanitarian and security workers and demonstrate his “constant mobilization in favor of a ceasefire.”
El-Arish is a transit point for international aid intended for Gaza.


Libya’s anti-NGO push seen as diversion from internal failures, analysts say

Updated 05 April 2025
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Libya’s anti-NGO push seen as diversion from internal failures, analysts say

  • Anas Al-Gomati, director of the Tripoli-based Sadeq Institute think tank, said “this isn’t about NGOs — it’s about creating enemies to distract from failures“
  • Libya analyst Jalel Harchaoui noted that the Tripoli government is adopting a similar tone to Tunisian President Kais Saied

TUNIS: Libya’s suspension of 10 international humanitarian groups, part of a broader crackdown on African migrants, is aimed at masking domestic failures and securing external concessions, particularly from Europe, analysts have said.
Libya’s Tripoli-based authorities announced on Wednesday a decision to suspend the Norwegian Refugee Council, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Terre des Hommes, CESVI and six other groups, accusing them of a plan to “settle migrants” from other parts of Africa in the country.
War-torn Libya is a key departure point on North Africa’s Mediterranean coast for migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries, risking dangerous sea voyages in the hope of reaching Europe.
Anas Al-Gomati, director of the Tripoli-based Sadeq Institute think tank, said “this isn’t about NGOs — it’s about creating enemies to distract from failures.”
The UN-recognized government of Abdulhamid Dbeibah is “tapping into conservative anxieties while masking their inability to provide basic services,” he told AFP.
Libya has struggled to recover from the chaos that followed the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that overthrew longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
It remains split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli and a rival authority in the east, backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
The ultimate goal, according to Gomati, is to “extract concessions from Europe which, fearing potential migration surges, will offer new funding packages and prop up the government in Tripoli.”
On Wednesday, Rome announced the allocation of 20 million euros to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to finance “voluntary repatriations” for 3,300 sub-Saharan migrants who arrived in Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.
“This isn’t coincidence — its coordination. The Libyan authorities shut down NGOs providing monitoring and protection (for migrants) precisely as Italy announces 20 million euros for ‘voluntary’ returns,” said Gomati.
“Italy gets to claim they’re funding ‘voluntary’ returns while Libya gets to demonstrate ‘sovereignty’, all while vulnerable migrants face extortion in detention before being labelled ‘volunteers’ for deportation.”
Libya analyst Jalel Harchaoui noted that the Tripoli government is adopting a similar tone to Tunisian President Kais Saied, who in early 2023 denounced what he called “hordes of sub-Saharan migrants” who threatened to “change the country’s demographic composition.”
Harchaoui, of the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said Dbeibah was facing considerable difficulties, particularly in gaining access to public funds, and his once pragmatic relationship with the Haftar family in the east had deteriorated.
The two rivals had previously struck a kind of non-aggression pact in exchange for sharing oil revenues.
“In its bid to assert control and project strength, the Dbeibah government has turned to demonizing sub-Saharan migrants and denouncing NGOs,” Harchaoui said.
This aims to “show who’s in charge in Tripoli and create the illusion that he is curbing migration flows.”
Exiled Libyan human rights activist Husam el-Gomati said on X that “this crackdown appears not only to limit the influence of these organizations but also to prevent the documentation of human rights violations and delay any potential punitive measures against militia leaders involved in these abuses.”
Various reports from the United Nations and NGOs such as Amnesty International have denounced the arbitrary detentions of government opponents, journalists and lawyers in recent months, as well as abuses against migrants, including the discovery of mass graves.
Following the NGO ban, aid groups have expressed concern for both their Libyan colleagues and the migrants who have been made more vulnerable in a country that, according to the IOM, is home to more than 700,000 residents from sub-Saharan countries.
The International Commission of Jurists on Friday condemned the “recent collective expulsions, arrests, violent attacks and the surge of hate speech, including that which constitutes incitement to violence, against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Libya.”
The organization noted that the Libyan interior ministry has pledged “the deportation of 100,000 migrants every four months.”