Tunisian fishermen vowed Sunday to block a ship carrying far-right activists from docking at their port, dealing a fresh blow to their mission to disrupt the flow of migrant boats from north Africa to Europe.
The C-Star, a boat chartered by anti-immigration group “Generation Identity,” passed through waters off Libya on Saturday.
It briefly tailed the Aquarius, operated by French group SOS Mediterranee, one of several NGO boats conducting search and rescue operations in an area notorious for deadly migrant boat sinkings.
Having left Cyprus on August 1, the 40-meter (130-foot) vessel was thought to be in need of supplies: but the fishermen in the southeastern Tunisian port of Zarzi had other ideas.
“If they come here we’ll close the refueling channel,” Chamseddine Bourassine, the head of the local fishermen’s organization, told AFP.
“It is the least we can do given what is happening out in the Mediterranean,” he added.
“Muslims and Africans are dying.”
An official at the port, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “What? Us let in racists here? Never!“
The C-Star headed straight from Cyprus to Libyan waters after being discouraged from attempting to dock en route in Greece and Sicily, with authorities concerned about the prospect of protests.
The self-styled “Defend Europe” mission has had a chequered history to date.
Their boat was held up for a week in the Suez Canal by Egyptian authorities looking for weapons.
Then, after it landed in the Cypriot port of Famagusta last month, several of its crew jumped ship and asked for asylum in Europe — exactly the kind of thing the mission was set up to prevent.
The C-Star crew say their main goal is to expose collaboration between NGO rescue ships and the traffickers who launch boats packed with migrants from Libya.
Humanitarian groups say Generation Identity is engaged in a potentially dangerous publicity stunt.
Since the start of 2014, some 600,000 people from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia have been rescued from traffickers’ boats and taken to Italy.
Over 10,000 have died en route and serial sinkings have resulted in privately funded or charity-run boats joining a multinational search and rescue operation coordinated by Italy’s coast guard.
NGO boats have rescued around one third of the nearly 100,000 people picked up this year, but their relations with Italy have become strained as pressure to stem the flow of migrants has mounted.
Critics say the NGOs make it too easy for the traffickers to guarantee would-be migrants safe passage to Europe, allegedly fueling the lucrative trade.
Italian authorities last week impounded one NGO boat, the Iuventa, which is operated by German association Jugend Rettet.
They accused its crew of being in direct contact with traffickers to organize pick-ups of boatloads of migrants from locations very close to the Libyan coast.
On Sunday, the Aquarius and Doctors without Borders (MSF) took part in a rescue operation in which around 100 people were plucked from a distressed dinghy.
The number of such rescues in international waters has fallen sharply over the last five weeks to under half the level of the same period last year.
Italian officials are cautiously optimistic that this reflects a breakthrough in their efforts to strengthen the Libyan coast guard’s capacity to combat traffickers.
The Libyan navy told AFP that between Thursday and Saturday the coast guard, which has received training and new equipment from Rome, had intercepted five trafficker boats carrying a total of 878 people.
Rights organizations have voiced concern over the focus on sending boats back to Libya.
They say the migrants on board face detention in squalid camps and the risk of torture, sexual violence and forced labor.
Italian officials defend the strategy as the only way to end a humanitarian crisis threatening to overwhelm the country’s reception facilities.
Tunisian fishermen vow to block ‘racist’ anti-migrant ship
Tunisian fishermen vow to block ‘racist’ anti-migrant ship
Queen Rania meets young entrepreneurs, highlights community development, youth empowerment
- Queen briefed on programs, collaborations
JERASH, Jordan: Queen Rania of Jordan visited Jerash on Sunday, meeting members of the Darb Al-Noor Association for Community Development and a group of young entrepreneurs she previously supported under a sponsorship scheme, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The queen was welcomed by Noor Banat, the president of the association, and was briefed on the organization’s programs and collaborations with local institutions.
The association focuses on supporting youngsters and women through small-scale projects and providing safe spaces and educational opportunities for children.
Queen Rania toured the Beit Al-Aseilat rest stop, an association initiative offering tourists cultural and culinary experiences.
The rest stop featured local food production activities — including olive oil, za’atar, and sumac processing — and the queen observed the olive-pressing process while interacting with employees in the production kitchen, before visiting the shop that sells products crafted by women and youngsters in Jerash.
Queen Rania also met the association’s board members and held discussions with youngsters from Jerash who run income-generating projects which were supported by the Jordan River Foundation’s sponsorship scheme in 2024. They shared their experiences in creating employment opportunities in the local area.
Palestinian population in Gaza Strip decreased by 6% in 2024 during Israeli war
- 5.5m Palestinians reside in West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip
- 65% of them are under 30, only 4% above 65
- Nearly 100,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza Strip since October 2023
- Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics confirms deaths of 45,484 individuals in the Israeli war on Gaza, as of December 2024
LONDON: The population of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip decreased by 6 percent in 2024, while the total number of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, inside Israel, and globally reached almost 15 million.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics’ 2024 consensus published on Sunday reported that the Gaza Strip’s population decreased by 6 percent in 2024, resulting in a loss of nearly 160,000 Palestinians, bringing the total population to 2.1 million.
The report confirmed the deaths of 45,484 individuals during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, as of December 2024.
The casualties included 17,581 children, 12,048 women, and 11,000 individuals who were missing and believed to be dead under the rubble.
Additionally, 108,090 people were injured, and nearly 100,000 Palestinians have fled the coastal enclave since the Israeli military aggression began in October 2023.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the figures were “terrifying,” and showed the extent of the Israeli occupation’s “brutality and its bloody massacres against our people,” the WAFA News Agency reported.
The total number of Palestinians reached 14.9 million in 2024, of which, according to the Bureau of Statistics, 7.3 million lived between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Of these, 5.5 million resided in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, with 65 percent being under 30 and only 4 percent above 65.
About 3.4 million people lived in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, 2.1 million in the Gaza Strip, while 1.8 million were Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Around 6.4 million Palestinians resided across various Arab countries, including Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
The remaining 1.2 million Palestinians belonged to the diaspora in Western countries, including Europe and North America.
Israel kills member of Palestinian security forces
- The Palestinian security services identified Rabaiya as a first lieutenant in its Preventive Security force, saying he was killed while “performing his national duty”
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces killed a member of the Palestinian security services in the occupied West Bank whom they accused of being a militant. Tearful Palestinians on Sunday meanwhile laid to rest six people killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip the day before, including a teenager.
Israel’s paramilitary Border Police said they carried out an operation in the West Bank village of Meithaloun to arrest Hassan Rabaiya, describing him as a wanted militant.
They said he was killed in a shootout while trying to escape, and that the troops found a shotgun, weapons parts and around $26,000 in cash inside his home.
Meithaloun is near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, an epicenter of Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years.
The Palestinian security services identified Rabaiya as a first lieutenant in its Preventive Security force, saying he was killed while “performing his national duty.”
The Palestinian Authority has been waging a rare crackdown on militants in Jenin in recent weeks, angering many Palestinians.
The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority exercises limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and cooperates with Israel on security matters. But Israel has long accused it of inciting violence and turning a blind eye to militants.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza held funeral prayers outside a hospital after six people were killed in two Israeli strikes the night before.
The mother and grandmother of the 15-year-old who was killed peeled back the white funeral shroud and kissed his cheeks as they sobbed. A few dozen people then gathered for prayers outside Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir Al-Balah.
Hezbollah leader Nasrallah was killed last year inside war operations room, aide says
- Nasrallah “used to lead the battle and war from this location,” Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa told news conference near the site where Nasrallah was killed
BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike last year while inside the group’s war operations room, according to new details Sunday disclosed by a senior Hezbollah official.
A series of Israeli airstrikes flattened several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sept. 27, 2024, killing Nasrallah. The Lebanese Health Ministry said six people died. According to news reports, Nasrallah and other senior officials were meeting underground.
The assassination of Nasrallah, who had led Hezbollah for 32 years, turned months of low-level strikes between Israel and the militants into all-out war that battered much of southern and eastern Lebanon for two months until a US-brokered ceasefire took effect Nov. 27.
“His Eminence (Hassan Nasrallah) used to lead the battle and war from this location,” top Hezbollah security official Wafiq Safa told a news conference Sunday near the site where Nasrallah was killed. He said Nasrallah died in the war operations room. He did not offer other details.
Lebanese media had reported that Safa was a target of Israeli airstrikes in central Beirut before the ceasefire but appeared unscathed.
During the first phase of the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to move its fighters, weapons and infrastructure away from southern Lebanon north of the Litani River, while Israeli troops that invaded southern Lebanon need to withdraw all within 60 days. Lebanese army soldiers are to deploy in large numbers and alongside United Nations peacekeepers be the sole armed presence in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon and Hezbollah have been critical of ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights across the country and for only withdrawing from two of dozens of Lebanese villages it controls. Israel says that the Lebanese military has not done its share in dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure.
Hezbollah’s current leader Naim Kassem in a televised address Saturday warned that its fighters could strike Israel if its troops don’t leave the south by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz echoed similar sentiments should Hezbollah’s militants not head north of the Litani River and their infrastructure remain intact.
“If this condition is not met, there will be no agreement, and Israel will be forced to act on its own to ensure the safe return of the residents of (Israel’s) north to their homes,” he said.
Safa said that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who negotiated the ceasefire deal with Washington, told Hezbollah that the government will meet with US envoy Amos Hochstein soon. “And in light of what happens, then there will be a position,” said Safa.
Hochstein had led the shuttle diplomacy efforts to reach the fragile truce.
Syria monitor reports blasts at arms depots near Damascus
- Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the blasts in Kisweh, south of the Syrian capital, may be the result of an Israeli air strike
BEIRUT: A Syria war monitor said explosions on Sunday rocked an area near Damascus housing weapons depots used by the toppled government of Bashar Assad.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the blasts in Kisweh, south of the Syrian capital, may be the result of an Israeli air strike.
The Israeli military, which has struck many military sites in Syria in recent weeks, told AFP in Jerusalem it did not attack the site.
The Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources in Syria, said that “loud blasts resonated in the wider capital area.”
The explosions occurred “at ammunition depots of the former regime forces... near the town of Kisweh,” sending a thick cloud of smoke billowing over the site, the Observatory said.
Israel, which rarely comments on its actions in neighboring Syria, has carried out hundreds of air strikes on military sites since Islamist-led forces ousted president Assad and seized Damascus last month.
Israel has said it was seeking to prevent weapons from falling into hostile hands.
Most recently, the Observatory said Israeli war planes hit sites of the now defunct Syrian army in the Aleppo area on Friday.
In late December, the Observatory said 11 people died in an explosion at an arms storage facility in the Adra area north Damascus, adding that it was possibly the result of an Israeli strike. Israel denied any involvement.
