TIZNIT, MOROCCO: “We refuse to be confined to a cage,” declares nomadic herder Mouloud, asserting the rights and customs of his kin as they graze livestock in Morocco’s southern expanses.
But the herders’ determination to roam freely has brought them into dispute with crop farmers in the region of Souss-Massa.
In the village of Arbaa Sahel, arable farmer Hmad and many of his peers are enraged by herds stomping through wheat and corn fields.
Drought has turned parts of these plateaus arid, and when water becomes scarce, tensions rise — several clashes have been reported by local media in recent months, as the herders seek pasture.
The battle is also playing out on social networks. Videos show hooded men presented as nomadic herders, equipped with sticks and swords, attacking villagers.
Some villagers have even uploaded images of what are purported to be camel-mounted attacks on their almond groves.
A few residents have fought back by poisoning water supplies and pastures used by nomads, according to testimony on the ground.
“All these lands that belong to locals, (to) fathers and sons — they’re not grazing areas,” said 35-year-old Hmad, clad in leather jacket and trainers.
Exasperated, he points to wheat fields “trampled by sheep” around Arbaa Sahel, near the city of Tiznit.
The region has drawn in nomadic herders for decades — the verdant landscape a major attraction, compared to arid lands to the east.
There has been a “significant rise in the arrival of flocks, due to drought” over the last couple of years, said nomad Mouloud, sporting sunglasses and a blue turban. This has stoked tensions.
A local land organization has recorded 18 cases of aggression by nomadic herders against farmers in Arbaa Sahel alone since December, according to Hassan, who sits on this committee. But Moroccan authorities say only 15 cases have been recorded in the entire Souss-Massa region. The tensions are not limited to farmland — there has been a spike in incidents in the region’s forests, which cover 1.2 million hectares.
Villagers consider these forests to be their property, in line with ancestral customs. But the nomadic culture, and the right to roam freely, form “part of the Moroccan identity,” said Mouloud.
Clutching his smart phone, he discusses the recent tensions with his nomadic friends, who erect large tents when they set up camp during their search for pasture.
In one such tent, women prepare food for the group — a metal tray full of grilled livers and other meat.
Abu Bakr, crouching next to Mouloud and sipping a glass of goat’s milk, has dropped his studies in favor of the nomadic lifestyle.
There are currently some 40,000 nomadic shepherds in the country, according to official statistics.
They move in all-terrain cars to escape the drought — their tents and herds packed into lorries.
When rains are rare, the nomads are constantly on the move, but their movement is more limited when rain is abundant.
“Schooling of children has pushed nomads to opt for stability,” said Abu Bakr.
For Mustapha Naimi, professor of Sahara studies at the University of Mohamed V in Rabat, “nomadism is very old in Morocco, but it has been reduced in recent decades by urbanization.”
Nomadic roaming by entire families has gradually given way to smaller scale pastoralism by shepherds, Naimi explained.
At the same time, “an increase in the number of herds, with 3.15 million heads of livestock... has contributed to conflict,” according to the agriculture ministry.
Land committee member Hassan recalls when shepherds would request “permission from residents” ahead of arriving with flocks.
A law has been adopted by the central government that seeks to regulate nomadic herding and allow “a rational exploitation of vegetation.”
The legislation only allows grazing of flocks in certain zones and along pre-defined routes. And nomads have to obtain a permit, or face penalties.
But this law has been rejected by both camps.
“We hold to our freedom to roam,” said herder Mouloud.
On the other side of the fence, the farmers’ land committee firmly opposes government-designated grazing on land that belongs to local residents.
Drought sharpens Moroccan nomads-farmers dispute
Drought sharpens Moroccan nomads-farmers dispute
- A law has been adopted by the central government that seeks to regulate nomadic herding and allow “a rational exploitation of vegetation”
Hezbollah drone strike kills four, wounds dozens at Israeli base
- Hezbollah says “squadron of attack drones” launched at military training camp in Binyamina, south of Haifa
- Strike was in response to Israeli attacks on Thursday that Lebanon says killed at least 22 people in central Beirut
Beirut: Israel’s military said a Hezbollah drone killed four soldiers at one of its northern bases Sunday, as it expanded its bombardments of Lebanon and troops battled militants across the border.
The attack on a military training camp in Binyamina, near Haifa, was the deadliest such assault on an Israeli base since September 23, when Israel increased its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Emergency services reported more than 60 wounded.
Authorities in Gaza, meanwhile, said the death toll from an Israeli strike Sunday on a school being used as a shelter for displaced people had risen to 15, including whole families, while a separate overnight strike on a hospital killed four.
And as fighting raged between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon’s south, United Nations peacekeepers said they had again been in the firing line.
They said Israeli troops “forcibly” entered a UN position with two tanks, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the force to withdraw from the area.
Israel’s military said a tank had backed into the UN post while under fire.
Iran-backed Hezbollah said late Sunday that it launched “a squadron of attack drones” at the Binyamina camp, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of the major city of Haifa.
The strike was in response to Israeli attacks, including air strikes on Thursday that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.
In a later statement, Hezbollah warned Israel that “what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our noble and dear people.”
An Israeli volunteer rescue service, United Hatzalah, said its teams in Binyamina assisted “over 60 wounded people” with injuries ranging from mild to critical.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets and drones into Israel for more than a year in support of Hamas militants in Gaza.
Since late September, however, its strikes have reached further into the country.
Israel’s sophisticated air defenses have intercepted most of the projectiles, with few casualties caused by strikes or falling debris.
Israel’s recent strikes have increasingly focused on areas beyond Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds in southern Beirut, and Lebanon’s south and east.
Israel said its air force hit “Hezbollah launchers, anti-tank missile posts, weapons storage facilities” and other targets, while on the ground its soldiers “eliminated dozens” of fighters.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency said Israeli forces had “escalated their attacks” on southern Lebanon with “successive air strikes” pounding several border villages.
It later reported that an Israeli strike on Mayfadoun, near Nabatiyeh, in southern Lebanon, had killed five people and wounded one other.
Hezbollah said its forces clashed several times with Israeli troops who tried to “infiltrate” villages along the border.
Before the drone strike it had said it launched a salvo of rockets at a “base in southern Haifa.”
The group later aired an audio recording of its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah calling on fighters to “defend this holy and blessed land and this honorable people.”
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike in south Beirut on September 27, and several other senior commanders of the movement have also been killed.
Israel’s military said about 115 projectiles fired by Hezbollah had crossed into Israeli territory by Sunday afternoon.
A Hezbollah fighter was captured emerging from a tunnel in south Lebanon on Sunday, Israel’s military said, the first such announcement since the start of the ground offensive.
UN peacekeepers accused Israeli troops of breaking through a gate and entering one of their positions before dawn Sunday in south Lebanon, the latest of several incidents the UNIFIL mission has reported since Thursday.
Five Blue Helmets have so far been injured, provoking international condemnation.
“Two IDF (Israeli military) Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position” in the Ramia area, before leaving 45 minutes later, UNIFIL said.
The Israeli military later said a tank “backed several meters into a UNIFIL post” while “under fire” and attempting to evacuate injured soldiers.Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu had called on the UN to move peacekeepers in southern Lebanon out of harm’s way, after the mission rejected requests to abandon its positions.
The peacekeepers’ presence had “the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields,” said Netanyahu.
UN chief Antonio Guterres on Sunday said “attacks” against peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime.”
UNIFIL, with about 9,500 troops, is in southern Lebanon under the longstanding UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.
Three Lebanese soldiers were wounded on Sunday, the country’s army said, when Israeli forces fired on military vehicles in the Marjayoun area.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in a phone call with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, appealed to Tehran to support “a general de-escalation” in Lebanon and Gaza, his office said.Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli shelling had killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens more Sunday at a school turned shelter for displaced Palestinians in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp.
“The school was bombarded with a large volley of Israeli artillery, resulting in an initial death toll of 15 martyrs, including children, women and entire families, and 50 wounded,” said Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency.
Israel’s military said it was “looking into the reports.”
Separately, the military said early Monday that it had carried out a strike targeting a “command and control center, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served as the ‘Shuhadah Al-Aqsa’ hospital.”
Civil defense spokesman Bassal said the strike had killed four people and wounded many more, noting it was the seventh time an attack had hit the “tents for displaced people inside the walls of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.”
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said late Sunday that a WHO-Palestine Red Crescent operation had managed to resupply two hospitals in northern Gaza.
“WHO and partners finally managed to reach Kamal Adwan and Al-Sahaba hospitals yesterday after 9 attempts this past week,” he posted on X.
Hamas sparked the war in Gaza with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The number includes hostages killed in captivity.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 42,000 people, the majority civilians, have been killed since Israel’s military campaign began there. The UN considers these figures to be reliable.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed more than 1,300 people since September 23, according to an AFP tally of official figures, including for Saturday.
That toll exceeds the entire Lebanese toll of 1,200 — mostly civilians — in the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, when 160 people, mostly soldiers, died in Israel.
The Pentagon said it would deploy a high-altitude anti-missile system and its US military crew to Israel to help the ally protect itself from potential Iranian attack.
Hezbollah threatens Israel with more attacks if Lebanon assault continues
- Drone attack on base near Israel’s Haifa killed four soldiers on Sunday
- Escalation in Lebanon has killed over 1,300, displaced more than a million
BEIRUTU, Lebanon: Lebanese militant group Hezbollah threatened Israel with more attacks if its offensive in Lebanon continued, after a drone attack on a base near Israel’s Haifa Sunday killed four soldiers.
Israel’s military said four soldiers were killed in the attack, the deadliest such assault on an Israeli base since September 23, when Israel increased its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hezbollah “promises the enemy that what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our... people,” it said.
In what it described as a “complex” operation, the Iran-backed group said it had launched dozens of missiles toward Nahariya and Acre north of Haifa “with the goal of keeping Israeli defense systems busy.”
At the same time, it launched “squadrons of various drones, some of which were being used for the first time, toward various areas in Acre and Haifa, where they were able to get past Israeli air defense radars without being detected” and hit the training camp in Binyamina south of Haifa, it added.
They “exploded in the rooms where dozens of officers and soldiers of the Israeli enemy were present.”
After claiming the Binyamina attack, Hezbollah said it had launched missiles at a “maintenance and rehabilitation base” of the army, also south of Haifa.
The incident comes two days after air raid sirens sounded in central Israel after two aerial drones entered the country from Lebanon. At least one building north of Tel Aviv was damaged during the incident.
Hezbollah has been regularly firing rockets and drones into Israel for more than a year, but has reached further since the fighting escalated in late September.
Israel’s air defenses, including the Iron Dome system, have intercepted most of the projectiles, with few casualties caused by strikes or falling debris.
The escalation in Lebanon has killed more than 1,300 people and displaced over a million more from their homes, according to official figures.
Hezbollah threatens Israel with more attacks if Lebanon assault continues
- After claiming the Binyamina attack, Hezbollah said it had launched missiles at a “maintenance and rehabilitation base” of the army, also south of Haifa
BEIRUTU, Lebanon: Lebanese militant group Hezbollah threatened Israel with more attacks if its offensive in Lebanon continued, after a drone attack on a base near Israel’s Haifa Sunday killed four soldiers.
Israel’s military said four soldiers were killed in the attack, the deadliest such assault on an Israeli base since September 23, when Israel increased its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hezbollah “promises the enemy that what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our... people,” it said.
In what it described as a “complex” operation, the Iran-backed group said it had launched dozens of missiles toward Nahariya and Acre north of Haifa “with the goal of keeping Israeli defense systems busy.”
At the same time, it launched “squadrons of various drones, some of which were being used for the first time, toward various areas in Acre and Haifa, where they were able to get past Israeli air defense radars without being detected” and hit the training camp in Binyamina south of Haifa, it added.
They “exploded in the rooms where dozens of officers and soldiers of the Israeli enemy were present.”
After claiming the Binyamina attack, Hezbollah said it had launched missiles at a “maintenance and rehabilitation base” of the army, also south of Haifa.
The incident comes two days after air raid sirens sounded in central Israel after two aerial drones entered the country from Lebanon. At least one building north of Tel Aviv was damaged during the incident.
Hezbollah has been regularly firing rockets and drones into Israel for more than a year, but has reached further since the fighting escalated in late September.
Israel’s air defenses, including the Iron Dome system, have intercepted most of the projectiles, with few casualties caused by strikes or falling debris.
The escalation in Lebanon has killed more than 1,300 people and displaced over a million more from their homes, according to official figures.
Israel military shows journalists area of operations in south Lebanon
- The military has escorted staff from several media organizations into southern Lebanon since Israel began its ground assault on September 30
EBANON-ISRAEL BORDER, Lebanon: The Israeli military on Sunday took a group of journalists across the border into south Lebanon, and showed what it claimed were three Hezbollah positions including two tunnels, just a few hundred meters from the border.
The Israeli soldiers escorting the media team, which included an AFP photographer, through the mountainous and densely forested terrain said they were near the Lebanese town of Naqura near the border.
The soldiers did not specify how far they were inside southern Lebanon, nor did the journalists see any other people in the area during their brief embed that lasted for about 90 minutes.
The movement of journalists was restricted by the military to a limited area, while the photos and video footage taken during the embed had to be approved by the military before publication.
One of the tunnels was, according to the military, just a few hundred meters (yards) from a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) post.
Israel has repeatedly asked UNIFIL, deployed along Lebanon’s southern border since 1978, to abandon its positions since it escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in September.
UNIFIL has rejected the requests.
“This is how you build an operational attack outpost. And that’s what we found here, just 300 yards from the UN post,” said Lt. Col. Rotem, an Israeli commander accompanying the journalists, who gave only one name for operational purposes.
The journalists were also shown a ditch located amid a cluster of trees, which the military claimed was a Hezbollah post.
The AFP photographer saw Israeli military vehicles crossing the border into Lebanon near Naqura, where troops had cut down trees near the entrance to one of the tunnels.
The military has escorted staff from several media organizations into southern Lebanon since Israel began its ground assault on September 30.
Israel stepped up its campaign in Lebanon on September 23, nearly a year after Hezbollah began launching cross-border attacks in what it said was support for its Palestinian ally, Hamas.
WHO, Red Crescent resupply two hospitals in north Gaza: WHO
- The resupply mission also delivered 20,000 liters (5,300 gallons) of fuel to keep Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda operational, and 23,000 liters of fuel were delivered to Al-Sahaba Hospital, along with 800 units of blood and essential medicines and supplies
GENEVA: World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said late Sunday that a WHO-Palestine Red Crescent operation had managed to resupply two hospitals in northern Gaza.
“WHO and partners finally managed to reach Kamal Adwan and Al-Sahaba hospitals yesterday after 9 attempts this past week,” he posted on social media platform X.
“The missions were completed amid ongoing hostilities,” he added.
He said drivers had been subjected to “humiliating security screening” and even temporarily detained at a checkpoint, “which is unacceptable.”
The WHO regularly criticizes the obstacles the Israeli authorities put in the way of these supply and patient evacuation missions.
It did so again on Friday during a news briefing in Geneva specifically on the subject of this relief mission to the northern Gaza Strip.
“One-off missions are not enough. There is a sustained need for resupplying hospitals to keep them functioning,” Tedros said, reiterating his call “for sustained facilitation of humanitarian missions and ensuring safety for humanitarian staff; and for a ceasefire.”
According to the WHO, 13 patients in critical condition were transferred from Kamal Adwan hospital to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
“The hospital is overwhelmed and still serving around 60 in-patients and receiving at least 50-70 injured daily,” Tedros said.
Six other patients who had been transferred earlier from Al-Awda Hospital to Kamal Adwan were also taken to Al-Shifa, along with those accompanying them.
The resupply mission also delivered 20,000 liters (5,300 gallons) of fuel to keep Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda operational, and 23,000 liters of fuel were delivered to Al-Sahaba Hospital, along with 800 units of blood and essential medicines and supplies.
The fuel is mainly used to run the hospitals’ generators to ensure power supply.
The hospital infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip is very fragile after a year of war between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas, with many facilities having been hit by shelling or fighting.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and carried out the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel that triggered the war, of operating under the cover of these buildings, which normally enjoy increased protection under the rules of war.
