THE HAGUE: International judges have issued a war crimes arrest warrant against a senior Libyan military commander, suspected of involvement in the deaths of 33 people in Benghazi.
“The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant of arrest for Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf Al-Werfalli, allegedly responsible for murder as a war crime in the context of the non-international armed conflict in Libya,” the Hague-based tribunal said in a statement.
Al-Werfalli, born in 1978, is a senior commander in the Al-Saiqa brigade, an elite unit which defected from the Libyan National Army after the uprising against longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
He joined the brigade after Qaddafi’s fall and has “played a commanding role since at least 2015,” the ICC’s judges said in the arrest warrant.
Since then, the brigade has been battling alongside forces loyal to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, which has recently been liberated after a three-year campaign against extremist groups.
Al-Werfalli is accused of involvement in at least seven incidents in 2016 and 2017 in which he allegedly personally shot or ordered the execution of people who were either civilians or injured fighters.
“There is no information in the evidence to show that they have been afforded a trial by a legitimate court, whether military or otherwise, that would comport to any recognized standard of due process,” the ICC’s judges said.
Tuesday’s announcement comes as the court is still in a legal tug-of-war with Libyan authorities to transfer Qaddafi’s son Seif Al-Islam to The Hague.
The ICC and Libyan authorities are disputing who has the right to judge him.
Seif Al-Islam faces crimes against humanity charges for his own role in the Qaddafi regime’s brutal attempts to put down the 2011 uprising, which eventually toppled his father.
The Qaddafi heir’s exact whereabouts are unknown, following a claim in June by a Zintan-based militia that it had freed Seif under an amnesty law promulgated by the parliament based in Libya’s east.
The ICC opened its probe into Libya in March 2011 to investigate atrocities committed during the uprising against Qaddafi, which erupted a month earlier.
The investigation comes after the UN Security Council referred the matter to the ICC.
Libya was then still under the iron-fisted rule of Qaddafi, who was killed a few months later by rebels in the NATO-backed uprising.
Political rivalries and fighting between militias have hampered Libya’s efforts to recover from the chaos that followed the uprising in the country.
ICC issues arrest warrant for Benghazi commander
ICC issues arrest warrant for Benghazi commander
44,330 Gazans killed in more than 13 months of war
- Medics said Israeli military strikes killed at least 17 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday
GAZA CITY: The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Thursday that at least 44,330 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 48 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,933 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Medics said Israeli military strikes killed at least 17 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday as forces stepped up bombardments on central areas and pushed tanks deeper in the north and south of the enclave.
Six people were killed in two separate airstrikes on a house and near the hospital of Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south.
In Nuseirat, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, Israeli planes carried out several airstrikes, destroying a multi-floor building and hitting roads outside mosques.
At least seven people were killed in some of those strikes, health officials said.
Medics said at least two people, a woman and a child, were killed in tank shelling that hit western areas of Nuseirat, while an air strike killed five others in a house nearby. In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the northern-west area of the city, residents said.
Months of attempts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.
Royal Jordanian, Ethiopian Airlines to resume flights to Lebanon, Gulf carriers delay decisions
- Both airlines announce service resumption in coming days, but most foreign airlines remain wary as they monitor stability of truce
- Lebanon’s ATTAL president says ‘7-8 companies expected to return in coming days’
LONDON: Royal Jordanian, and Ethiopian Airlines have announced the resumption of flights to Beirut following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah that took effect on Wednesday.
However, most Gulf and European airlines are delaying any immediate return to Lebanese airspace as they monitor the stability of the truce.
Jordan’s flag carrier, Royal Jordanian, will restart flights to Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport on Sunday after halting operations in late August amid escalating hostilities. CEO Samer Majali confirmed on Thursday that services would resume following the ceasefire.
Ethiopian Airlines has also reopened bookings for flights to Beirut, with services scheduled to resume on Dec. 10.
But despite these developments, most international airlines remain cautious.
Fadi Al-Hassan, director of Beirut Airport, told LBCI that Arab and foreign carriers were expected to gradually resume operations in the coming weeks, especially as the holiday season approaches.
However, Jean Abboud, president of the Association of Travel and Tourist Agents in Lebanon, predicted a slower return.
Abboud said in a statement that he expects “the return of some companies within a few days, which do not exceed seven to eight companies out of about 60 companies,” adding that many carriers were eyeing early 2025 to resume operations.
Airline updates
- Emirates: Flights to and from Beirut remain canceled until Dec. 31.
- Etihad Airways, Saudia, Air Arabia, Oman Air, Qatar Airways: Suspensions extend until early January 2025.
- Lufthansa Group (including Eurowings): Flights to Beirut suspended until Feb. 28, 2025.
- Air France-KLM: Services to Beirut suspended until Jan. 5, 2025, and Tel Aviv until Dec. 31, 2024.
- Aegean Air: Flights to Beirut from Athens, London, and Milan are suspended until April 1, 2025.
At present, Middle East Airlines remains the sole carrier operating flights to and from Beirut, having maintained operations despite intense Israeli airstrikes near the airport.
The airline serves all major Gulf and European hubs, but flights are fully booked in the coming days as Lebanese expatriates rush to return home following the ceasefire announcement.
The upcoming Christmas season has also driven a surge in demand, offering a glimmer of hope for a country reeling from widespread destruction and an escalating economic crisis.
With the conflict having severely impacted Lebanon’s tourism sector, the holiday season could provide a much-needed lifeline for the struggling economy.
The resumption of additional services is expected to depend on whether the ceasefire holds and the overall security situation stabilizes.
UK signs deals with Iraq aimed at curbing irregular immigration
- “Organized criminals operate across borders, so law enforcement needs to operate across borders too,” Cooper said
- Pacts include a joint UK-Iraq “statement on border security” committing both countries to work more closely in tackling people smuggling and border security
LONDON: The UK government said Thursday it had struck a “world-first security agreement” and other cooperation deals with Iraq to target people-smuggling gangs and strengthen its border security.
Interior minister Yvette Cooper said the pacts sent “a clear signal to the criminal smuggling gangs that we are determined to work across the globe to go after them.”
They follow a visit this week by Cooper to Iraq and its autonomous Kurdistan region, when she met federal and regional government officials.
“Organized criminals operate across borders, so law enforcement needs to operate across borders too,” she said in a statement.
Cooper noted people-smuggling gangs’ operations “stretch back through Northern France, Germany, across Europe, to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and beyond.”
“The increasingly global nature of organized immigration crime means that even countries that are thousands of miles apart must work more closely together,” she added.
The pacts include a joint UK-Iraq “statement on border security” committing both countries to work more closely in tackling people smuggling and border security.
The two countries signed another statement on migration to speed up the returns of people who have no right to be in the UK and help reintegration programs to support returnees.
As part of the agreements, London will also provide up to £300,000 ($380,000) for Iraqi law enforcement training in border security.
It will be focused on countering organized immigration crime and narcotics, and increasing the capacity and capability of Iraq’s border enforcement.
The UK has pledged another £200,000 to support projects in the Kurdistan region, “which will enhance capabilities concerning irregular migration and border security, including a new taskforce.”
Other measures within the agreements include a communications campaign “to counter the misinformation and myths that people-smugglers post online.”
Cooper’s interior ministry said collectively they were “the biggest operational package to tackle serious organized crime and people smuggling between the two countries ever.”
Some Lebanon hospitals look set to restart quickly after ceasefire, WHO says
- “Probably some of our hospitals will take some time,” Abdinasir Abubakar, WHO representative in Lebanon said
GENEVA: A World Health Organization official voiced optimism on Thursday that some of the health facilities in Lebanon shuttered during more than a year of conflict would soon be operational again, if the ceasefire holds.
“Probably some of our hospitals will take some time, but some hospitals probably will be able to restart very quickly,” Abdinasir Abubakar, WHO representative in Lebanon, told an online press conference after a damage assessment this week.
“So we are very hopeful,” he added, saying four hospitals in and around Beirut were among those that could restart quickly.
Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah
- Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details
- It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border
BEIRUT: At least two people were wounded by Israeli fire in southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to state media. The Israeli military said it had fired at people trying to return to certain areas on the second day of a ceasefire with Hezbollah.
The agreement, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah militants are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
