AM
MAN: Long before Palestinian parliamentary elections, Palestinian radio and TV, and regular public opinion polls, elections — any elections — had a political meaning.
Elections for student councils, charitable organizations, sports clubs or trade unions had political significance.
Municipal elections for sure had a political message. Before the Oslo Accords, Palestinians proudly showed their loyalty and support to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) by electing names that were clearly identified with one or more of the PLO factions.
But nowadays, alas, elections have a little political value the way it used to.
Palestine’s leading university held student council elections on May 10, but the results did not seem to matter very much to anyone.
At Birzeit University, which was the stepping stone into political life for imprisoned leading legislator Marwan Barghouti (now leading Palestinians on a hunger strike in Israeli prisons), students close to Hamas received the highest number of votes — 3,778, while students supporting Fatah got 3,340 and those loyal to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) garnered 619 votes.
The two leftists organizations, the Democratic Front and the People’s Party, only managed 50 and 40 votes respectively.
In the presence of legal political parties, many would argue that student council elections are no longer a barometer of public support.
The same can be said about local council elections, held in the West Bank, only, on May 14.
Hamas officially boycotted these elections and so did the Popular Front, so most of the slates were either tribal lists or competing Fatah groups.
According to the Palestinian Independent Elections Commission, 420,682 Palestinians voted out of 787,386 registered voters in 2017 — 53.4 percent, similar to that of 2012.
The May 14 elections were scheduled for Oct. 8, last year, but were postponed by the Palestinian High Court when the Hamas-appointed courts in Gaza invalidated a number of lists that belonged to the competing Fatah movement.
After much deliberation, the court decided that elections would first be held in the West Bank on May 14.
Palestinian government and political officials, as well as the head of the elections commission, called on Hamas to allow the people of Gaza to participate in follow-up municipal elections in Gaza.
Wafa Adel Rahman, a Gazan living in Ramallah, was so upset about the elections not taking place in Gaza that she decided not to vote in her current place of residence, Ramallah.
Abdel Rahman, who runs the non-governmental organization (NGO) Falastinat, a media organization that supports the equitable discourse of youth and women, told Arab News that she decided not to participate in the current elections, because she did not feel it was necessary or urgent.
“At a time when we have not reached a political consensus and the divisions between the West Bank and Gaza have meant that Gaza has been removed from the occasion, plus the prisoners’ strike, I have decided personally not to participate.”
The sentiment is similar in the West Bank’s business capital Nablus.
Kaid Miari, who runs the Shahed think tank, told Arab News that the city witnessed the lowest voting percentage because of a lackluster election campaign and the prisoner strike.
“A coalition list was made up of a mix of pro-Fatah and pro-Hamas figures, and this left very little competition in the elections. Furthermore, the call by the prisoners’ support committee for a postponement of the elections also caused many to stay away.”
Anees Sweidan, an official in the PLO’s Ramallah office, told Arab News that many families of prisoners who are on hunger strike heeded the call to boycott the elections.
“Many stayed away for that reason; a small percentage, 2 percent, actually cast votes with the words hunger strike written on them.”
In some of the other major cities, it seems that the elections were not held on a political basis.
Fatah versus Fatah lists were featured in Ramallah, Hebron and Bethlehem.
In many villages, elections did not take place because there was consensus on the candidates, so there was no reason to hold elections. In addition, Gaza elections were not held in East Jerusalem either.
Palestinian officials have not been able to carry out any election procedure in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed shortly after the 1967 occupation.
Hazem H. Kawasmi, head of operations in the Municipal Development and Lending Fund in the West Bank, told Arab News that the Palestinian government did not try very hard to have East Jerusalemites participate in these elections.
“We all know that the Palestinian leadership has many cards it could use to force Israel to allow the 330,000 residents of East Jerusalem to participate in the elections,” said Kawasmi.
According to him, the Palestinian government can use the threat of going to the International Court of Justice and to UN agencies if Israel prevents Palestinians in East Jerusalem from participating.
While student councils and municipal elections cannot be used anymore as political barometers of political tendencies in Palestine, they are still seen as important features in the continuity and sustainability of daily life, irrespective of political progress or lack thereof.
For the Palestinian president, holding local elections, whether at universities or for municipal councils, is proof of the democratic nature of the Palestinian leadership, in contrast with the undemocratic tendencies of the Hamas movement in Gaza, which has not allowed any sort of elections.
What most Palestinians want, of course, is the renewal of parliamentary and presidential elections.
The last time President Mahmoud Abbas was elected was in 2005, and the last time Palestinians participated in legislative elections (in which East Jerusalemites and Gazans participated ) was in 2006.
Since then, these important general elections have not taken place and in the meantime different groups came to be in charge of the West Bank and Gaza.
Abbas, who won the presidential election, and his government are in firm control of the West Bank, while in Gaza, Hamas, whose followers won the parliamentary elections in 2006, refuse to recognize Abbas’ authority and created a renegade regime.
All attempts at reconciliation and agreements signed between Fatah and Hamas include the need to hold new elections as the best way to resolve differences.
Neither the student council elections at Birzeit University, in which Hamas sympathizers received the highest votes, nor the municipal elections in the West bank, in which pro-Fatah names won in most locations, will do much to break the larger logjam.
Until general elections take place in all of the occupied territories, including Gaza and East Jerusalem, with all political groups participating, the fractured nature of Palestinian politics will continue.
Palestinian elections fail to provide political answers
Palestinian elections fail to provide political answers
Israel army says killed another Hezbollah militant in south Lebanon strike
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said it killed a member of Hezbollah in a strike in south Lebanon on Friday evening, after announcing the killing of another operative from the Lebanese armed group earlier in the day.
“Earlier this evening, a Hezbollah terrorist was struck and eliminated by the IDF (military) in the area of Ayta Al-Shab in southern Lebanon,” the military said in a statement. It earlier said it had killed another militant in the area of Sidon.
Israeli strikes hit dozens of targets in Gaza as ceasefire efforts stall
- Defense Minister Israel Katz repeated that Israel intended to achieve its war aims
- “The IDF is currently working toward a decisive victory in all arenas,” he said
JERUSALEM: Israeli airstrikes hit about 40 targets across the Gaza Strip over the past day, the military said on Friday, hours after Hamas rejected an Israeli ceasefire offer that it said fell short of its demand to agree a full end to the war.
Last month the Israeli military broke off a two-month truce that had largely halted fighting in Gaza and has since pushed in from the north and south, seizing almost a third of the enclave as it seeks to pressure Hamas into agreeing to release hostages and disarm.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he would make a special statement on Saturday evening but gave no detail on what it would be about.
Palestinian health authorities said that at least 43 people were killed in strikes on Friday, adding to more than 1,600 deaths since Israel resumed airstrikes in March.
The military said troops were operating in the Shabura and Tel Al-Sultan areas near the southern city of Rafah, as well as in northern Gaza, where it has taken control of large areas east of Gaza City.
Egyptian mediators have been trying to revive the January ceasefire deal that broke down when Israel resumed airstrikes and sent ground troops back into Gaza, but there has been little sign the two sides have moved closer on fundamental issues.
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
But he dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza.
On Friday, Defense Minister Israel Katz repeated that Israel intended to achieve its war aims.
“The IDF is currently working toward a decisive victory in all arenas, the release of the hostages, and the defeat of Hamas in Gaza,” he said in a statement.
The ceasefire offer it made through Egyptian mediators includes talks on a final settlement to the war but no firm agreement.
Katz also said this week that troops would remain in the buffer zone around the border that now extends deep into Gaza and cuts the enclave in two, even after any settlement.
‘War has taken everything’: AFP reporter returns home to Khartoum
- Bombs tore through homes, fighters took over the streets and hundreds of thousands scrambled to escape
- Since the war broke out, the paramilitaries have been notorious for taking over and looting homes, selling the contents or taking it for themselves
KHARTOUM: It had been nearly two years since AFP journalist Abdelmoneim Abu Idris Ali set foot in his home in war-torn Khartoum, after the sound of children playing in the street gave way to the fearsome fire of machine guns.
Sudan’s once-peaceful capital awoke to the sound of bombs and gunfire on April 15, 2023 as war broke out between its two most powerful generals — army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Bombs tore through homes, fighters took over the streets and hundreds of thousands scrambled to escape — among them Abdelmoneim, his wife, his son and three daughters.
Since then they have been displaced five times — fleeing each time the front line closed in.
Eventually the 59-year-old journalist sent his family to safety in another African country while he settled down to work alone from Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Then last month he was able to briefly return to his home in Khartoum North during a reporting trip escorted by the army after it recaptured the city.
He found his beloved neighborhood, known as Bahri, abandoned.
“The whole place is cloaked in silence, no grocery store chit-chats, no boisterous games of football on the corner, nothing,” he said.
“The last time I was here, the neighbors were all in the street saying goodbye, praying for each other’s safety, promising we would meet again soon.”
Now their doors hung ajar, beds dragged out onto the street, apparently by RSF fighters who used them to sleep in the open air.
Since the war broke out, the paramilitaries have been notorious for taking over and looting homes, selling the contents or taking it for themselves.
When he got to his landing, Abdelmoneim braced himself for what he would find inside.
“It was like an earthquake had hit. The furniture was upside-down and thrown around, pieces shattered on the ground,” he said.
He clambered slowly from room to room, taking in the damage.
The couch was pocked with burn marks where the fighters had put out cigarette after cigarette.
His daughters’ closets were ripped open and emptied of every last dress.
And on the floor of his office, lying among the tattered remains of his library, was a photo of his wedding to his wife Nahla, with her image torn out.
“I don’t get what they have against my books and my wedding photos,” he said.
“I knew they had stolen furniture. I couldn’t imagine they would destroy everything else.”
In March, the army recaptured Khartoum, to the joy of millions of displaced Sudanese anxious to return to their homes.
“But my girls say they never want to come back,” Abdelmoneim said.
“How can they ever forget sleeping huddled together in the living room, terrified by the sound of every air strike?“
Abdelmoneim shudders at the thought of the horrors they have seen since.
“When we were leaving Khartoum, there were bodies lying in the street and an old man standing over them, trying to keep a plastic sheet in place.
“When I stopped to ask him if he was okay, he said, ‘I’m trying to keep the dogs away.’ I wish my kids had never heard that.”
For seven months, Abdelmoneim tried to wait out the fighting in Wad Madani, just south of Khartoum, hoping against hope they could go home.
“The moment I realized this wouldn’t end for years was when the war came to Wad Madani,” he said.
Again they took everything they could carry, and again they joined a wave of hundreds of thousands of people running away, this time on foot, heading east.
The veteran journalist and his wife made the painful choice to separate the family — she and the children would go to another country; and he would go to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, home to the United Nations, the army-aligned government and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Abdelmoneim, like countless Sudanese caught in the war’s crossfire, has lost family members, his life savings and any hope for the future.
“This war has taken everything from us,” he said.
“And everything they haven’t taken, they’ve destroyed.”
For years he had been building up a tiny homestead on the outskirts of Khartoum, lined with fruit trees and a few simple crops he could tend when he retired. The RSF destroyed it in their rampage.
His family’s home and land, in the agricultural state of Al-Jazira, were looted and cut off from power and water — his relatives left starving and powerless to defend themselves against the RSF’s predations.
Now both Al-Jazira and Khartoum are under army control but the war, and the suffering it has wrought, is far from over.
Tens of thousands have been killed and more than 12 million uprooted, including almost four million who fled to other countries.
Hundreds of thousands are returning to areas recaptured by the army, choosing destitution at home over displacement, but most of these areas still lack clean water, electricity and health care.
Famine still stalks Sudan, with around 638,000 people already in famine and eight million on the brink of mass starvation.
The country remains divided, and the RSF — in control of nearly all of the western region of Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south — has not given up the fight.
In recent weeks, the paramilitaries have killed hundreds of people in famine-stricken displacement camps, while RSF chief Dagalo has announced a rival administration to rule over the ashes.
For many like Abdelmoneim, even their modest dreams now seem impossible.
“If this war ends tomorrow, all I want is to be somewhere quiet and safe with my family, farming in peace.”
Iraqi and Syrian leaders meet in Qatar, marking significant first encounter
- Meeting brokered by Qatar, with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani present
CAIRO: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani met on Thursday in Qatar with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the first encounter between the two leaders, Iraqi and Syrian state news agencies reported.
The meeting was brokered by Qatar, with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani present. It came ahead of Sharaa’s expected attendance at the Arab Summit in Baghdad on May 17.
In January, Sharaa was named as interim president and pledged to form an inclusive transitional government that would build up the Syrian Arab Republic’s gutted public institutions and run the country until elections, which he said could take up to five years to hold.
Syria issued a constitutional declaration, designed to serve as the foundation for the interim period led by Sharaa. The declaration kept a central role for Islamic law and guaranteed women’s rights and freedom of expression.
During Thursday’s meeting, Al-Sudani called for the beginning of a comprehensive political process and the protection of social, religious, and national diversity in Syria, especially after an attack on Alawites last month.
Hundreds of Alawites were killed in Syria’s western coastal region in apparent retribution for a deadly ambush on Syria’s new security forces by armed loyalists to toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad, an Alawite.
The Iraqi prime minister also stressed the importance of the new Syrian government taking serious steps to combat Daesh militants.
He said progress made on these issues could help in building growing relations between Baghdad and Damascus.
Both leaders agreed to respect the sovereignty of the two countries and reject all kinds of foreign interference.
Yemen’s Houthi militants say 74 killed in US airstrikes targeting oil port
- The attack is the deadliest known attack in the American airstrike campaign that began Mar. 15
- Houthis strictly control access to areas attacked and don’t publish information on the strikes
DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi militants said Friday that the toll from US airstrikes targeting oil port jumped to 74 people killed and 171 others wounded.
The toll from the militants’ Health Ministry in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, reflected the destruction from the overnight strikes that left fuel trucks burning and sent fireballs into the night sky.
The attack is the deadliest known attack in the American airstrike campaign that began Mar. 15 under President Donald Trump.
The US military’s Central Command declined to comment when asked about civilian casualties from the strikes.
Assessing the campaign’s toll has been incredibly difficult as the Central Command so far has not released any information on the campaign, its specific targets and how many people have been killed. Meanwhile, the Houthis strictly control access to areas attacked and don’t publish information on the strikes, many of which likely have targeted military and security sites.
But the strike on the Ras Isa oil port, which sent massive fireballs shooting into the night sky, represented a major escalation for the American campaign.
The Houthis immediately released graphic footage of those killed in the attack.
In a statement, Central Command said that “US forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years.”
“This strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen, who rightly want to throw off the yoke of Houthi subjugation and live peacefully,” it added. It did not acknowledge any casualties and declined to comment when asked by The Associated Press regarding civilians reportedly being killed.
The Iranian-backed Houthis later Friday launched a missile toward Israel that was intercepted, the Israeli military said. Sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and other areas.
The war in Yemen, meanwhile, further internationalized as the US alleged a Chinese satellite company was “directly supporting” Houthi attacks, something Beijing declined to directly comment on Friday.
US strikes spark massive fireball
The Ras Isa port, a collection of three oil tanks and refining equipment, sits in Yemen’s Hodeida governorate along the Red Sea. NASA satellites that track forest fires showed an intense blaze early Friday at the site just off Kamaran Island, targeted by intense US airstrikes over the past few days.
The Houthis’ Al-Masirah satellite news channel aired graphic footage of the aftermath, showing corpses strewn across the site. It said paramedic and civilians workers at the port had been killed in the attack, which sparked a massive explosion and fires.
The Ras Isa port also is the terminus of an oil pipeline stretching to Yemen’s energy-rich Marib governorate, which remains held by allies of Yemen’s exiled government. The Houthis expelled that government from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, back in 2015. However, oil exports have been halted by the decadelong war and the Houthis have used Ras Isa to bring in oil.
The Houthis denounced the US attack.
“This completely unjustified aggression represents a flagrant violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and independence and a direct targeting of the entire Yemeni people,” the Houthis said in a statement carried by the SABA news agency they control. “It targets a vital civilian facility that has served the Yemeni people for decades.”
On April 9, the US State Department issued a warning about oil shipments to Yemen.
“The United States will not tolerate any country or commercial entity providing support to foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Houthis, including offloading ships and provisioning oil at Houthi-controlled ports,” it said.
The attack follows Israeli airstrikes on the Houthis which previously hit port and oil infrastructure used by the militants after their attacks on Israel.
