BEIRUT: Sectarian and partisan polarization resulting from fierce competition for parliamentary seats in Lebanon has led to the first armed clash between two rival Druze parties.
Machine guns were used in the clash between the Progressive Socialist Party, led by MP Walid Jumblatt, and the Lebanese Democratic Party, led by Talal Arslan, which took place on Sunday evening in the city of Choueifat, about 5 km south of Beirut.
The two parties’ leaders acted quickly to calm their supporters.
“When politicians plant seeds of hatred and grudges among people, they commit a crime against citizens who have been breaking bread together for centuries,” Jumblatt said in a tweet.
In a joint statement, the two parties stressed “the need to avoid any steps that could provoke anger among supporters or disturb citizens who look forward to freely exercising their right to vote in an atmosphere of democratic competition.”
The two parties, alongside other parties with supporters in Choueifat, such as Hezbollah, the Lebanese Forces, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and the Amal Movement, have agreed on “disowning anyone who breaches security, requesting that the security forces intensify their presence in Choueifat, identifying fixed locations until the elections are over, and restraining from carrying out provocative processions.”
Campaigning lasts 24 hours before polling and has seen various kinds of violations of the electoral law.
Several young men from the Sabaa party — a group of independent activists — demonstrated on Tuesday outside the Ministry of Interior, carrying banners questioning the ministry’s role in election-related issues.
“Serious violations are taking place because the country is out of control; many are exploiting their positions and pouring (in) their money, and conflicts are happening at grassroots level — people are tearing down photos of candidates and individuals are fighting with one another,” said Gilbert Hobeish on behalf of the demonstrators.
He added: “This is unacceptable, and the minister of interior must take responsibility.”
Hobeish criticized the Electoral Supervisory Commission, saying “it only oversees the civil society or change candidates.”
“We reject this in toto,” he said.
Ali Al-Amin, a candidate on the Shbaana Haki electoral list (who was assaulted last Sunday by Hezbollah supporters in the town of Shaqra because he hung his photo outside his house), held a press conference in the town of Nabatiyah Al-Fawqa and renewed his protest against “the tyranny that silences voices, oppresses liberties and acts on its own will and temperaments, making us feel as if we were in the law of the jungle era.”
He said that “resistance isn’t anyone’s property nor is it one party’s ownership.”
He also called on “the free people of the south to decide which life they wanted and to which homeland and identity they belonged.”
Campaign fever is rising in Lebanon 48 hours before the elections are held for the first time for Lebanese communities in several Arab countries. These elections are to be held 11 days before parliamentary elections take place inside Lebanon.
Lebanese election campaign fever turns into clash between Druze parties
Lebanese election campaign fever turns into clash between Druze parties
- Lebanon's independent Sabaa party talks about exploitation of positions and money.
- Several young men from the Sabaa party demonstrated on Tuesday outside the Ministry of Interior.
Macron says West must be cautious over new Syria rulers
“We must regard the regime change in Syria without naivety,” Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors after Islamist-led forces toppled Assad last month, adding France would not abandon “freedom fighters, like the Kurds” who are fighting extremist groups in Syria.
UN: Over 30 million in need of aid in war-torn Sudan
- Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced
- Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: More than 30 million people, over half of them children, are in need of aid in Sudan after twenty months of war, the United Nations said on Monday.
The UN has launched a $4.2 billion call for funds, targeting 20.9 million people across Sudan from a total of 30.4 million people it said are in need in what it called “an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”
Sudan has been torn apart and pushed to the brink of famine by the war that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than eight million internally displaced, which, in addition to 2.7 million displaced before the war, has made Sudan the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
A further 3.3 million people have fled across Sudan’s borders to escape the war, which means over a quarter of the country’s pre-war population, estimated at around 50 million, are now uprooted.
Famine has already been declared in five areas in Sudan and is expected to take hold of five more areas by May, with 8.1 million people currently on the brink of mass starvation.
Sudan’s army-aligned government has denied there is famine, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
For much of the conflict, the UN has struggled to raise even a quarter of the funds it has targeted for its humanitarian response in the impoverished northeast African country.
Sudan has often been called the world’s “forgotten” war, overshadowed by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine despite the scale of the horrors inflicted upon civilians.
Jordanian FM discusses rebuilding Syria in Turkiye talks
DUBAI: The Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi highlighted on Tuesday the need to help Syria regain its security, stability, and sovereignty during discussions in Turkiye.
Talks also focused on providing support to the Syrian people and addressing the challenge of rebuilding the war-torn country.
He underscored Jordan's firm stance against any aggression on Syria’s sovereignty, rejecting Israeli attacks on Syrian territory.
The minister also expressed solidarity with Turkey, supporting its rights in confronting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), emphasizing the importance of regional cooperation to ensure peace and stability.
Israel military says three projectiles fired from north Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it identified three projectiles fired from the northern Gaza Strip that crossed into Israel on Monday, the latest in a series of launches from the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“One projectile was intercepted by the IAF (air force), one fell in Sderot and another projectile fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said in a statement.
Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers
- Strike targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt ‘for the third time in less than a month’
- War between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands of people
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Ten Sudanese civilians were killed and over 30 wounded in an army air strike on southern Khartoum, volunteer rescue workers said.
The strike on Sunday targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt “for the third time in less than a month,” said the local Emergency Response Room (ERR), part of a network of volunteers across the country coordinating frontline aid.
The group said those killed burned to death. The wounded, suffering from burns, were taken to the local Bashair Hospital, with five of them in a critical condition.
Since April 2023, the war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people.
In the capital alone, the violence killed 26,000 people between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Khartoum has experienced some of the war’s worst violence, with entire neighborhoods emptied out and taken over by fighters.
The military, which maintains a monopoly on the skies with its jets, has not managed to wrest back control of the capital from the paramilitary.
Of the 11.5 million people currently displaced within Sudan, nearly a third have fled from the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.
