JERUSALEM: Israel plans to use anti-terrorism tracking technology and a partial shutdown of its economy to minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.
Cyber tech monitoring would be deployed to locate people who have been in contact with those carrying the virus, subject to cabinet approval, Netanyahu told a news conference in Jerusalem.
“We will very soon begin using technology ... digital means that we have been using in order to fight terrorism,” Netanyahu said. He said he had requested Justice Ministry approval because such measures could infringe patients’ privacy.
In an escalation of precautionary measures, Netanyahu’s government announced that malls, hotels, restaurants and theaters will shut down from Sunday, and said employees should not go to their workplaces unless it was necessary.
However vital services, pharmacies, supermarkets and banks would continue to operate.
Health officials urged people to maintain social distancing, and not to gather more than 10 people in a room.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, confirmed that it was examining the use of its technological capabilities to fight coronavirus, at the request of Netanyahu and the Health Ministry.
Avner Pinchuk, a privacy expert with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, said such capabilities could include real-time tracking of infected persons’ mobile phones to spot quarantine breaches and backtracking through meta-data to figure out where they had been and who they had contacted.
“I am troubled by this announcement. I understand that we are in unique circumstances, but this seems potentially like over-reach. Much will depend on how intrusive the new measures are,” said Pinchuk.
The Shin Bet, however, said in its statement that quarantine enforcement was not on the table. “There is no intention of using said technologies for enforcement or tracking in the context of isolation guidelines,” it said.
Netanyahu said it was not an easy choice to make and described the virus as an “invisible enemy that must be located.” He said Israel would follow similar methods used by Taiwan.
“In all my years as prime minister I have avoided using these means among the civilian public but there is no choice,” Netanyahu said.
The latest announcement follows a series of ever-stricter restrictions imposed by Israel to contain the virus.
The Israeli military said earlier on Saturday that it had ordered all troops to be back on their bases by Sunday morning, and that combat soldiers should prepare for a lengthy stay with no leave for up to a month.
Last week anyone entering Israel was ordered to self-isolate for two weeks and schools have been shut. Tens of thousands of Israelis are presently quarantined.
Israel’s Health Ministry said 193 people have tested positive, with no fatalities. Many had been on international flights in the past two weeks.
Israel to use anti-terror tech to counter coronavirus ‘invisible enemy’
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Israel to use anti-terror tech to counter coronavirus ‘invisible enemy’
- Cyber tech monitoring will be deployed to locate people who have been in contact with those carrying the virus
- In an escalation of precautionary measures, Netanyahu’s government announced that malls, hotels, restaurants and theaters will shut down
798 people killed while receiving aid in Gaza, says UN human rights office
- Killings both at aid points run by the US- and Israeli-backed group and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief bodies
The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid.
The United Nations has called the plan “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules.
“Up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May and has repeatedly denied that incidents had occurred at its sites.
Kurdish PKK militants begin handing over weapons in cave in Iraq
- Disarmament ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party from armed insurgency to democratic politics
- Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said peace efforts with the Kurds would gain momentum after the PKK begin laying down its weapons
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq: Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants began handing over weapons in a ceremony in a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, officials said, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkiye.
Helicopters hovered above the mountain where the disarmament process got underway, with dozens of Iraqi Kurdish security forces surrounding the area, a Reuters witness said.
The PKK, locked in conflict with the Turkish state and outlawed since 1984, decided in May to disband, disarm and end its separatist struggle after a public call to do so from its long-imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.
After a series of failed peace efforts, the new initiative could pave the way for Ankara to end an insurgency that has killed over 40,000 people, burdened the economy and wrought deep social and political divisions in Turkiye and the wider region.
The ceremony was held inside the Jasana cave in the town of Dukan, 60 kilometers northwest of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq’s north, according to an Iraqi security official and another regional government official.
Around 40 PKK militants and one commander were to hand over their weapons, people familiar with the plan said. It was unclear when further handovers would take place.
The PKK has been based in northern Iraq after being pushed well beyond Turkiye’s southeastern frontier in recent years. Turkiye’s military has regularly carried out operations and strikes on PKK bases in the region and established several military outposts there.
No footage of the ceremony has been made available yet, but Turkish broadcasters have been showing the crowds gathered near Sulaymaniyah and landscapes of the mountainous region as part of their coverage of what they said was a historic moment.
The arms are to be destroyed later in another ceremony attended by Turkish and Iraqi intelligence figures, officials of Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government, and senior members of Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM party – which also played a key role in facilitating the PKK’s disarmament decision.
Next steps
The PKK, DEM and Ocalan have all called on Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s government to address Kurdish demands for more rights in regions where Kurds form a majority, particularly the southeast where the insurgency was concentrated.
In a rare online video published on Wednesday, Ocalan also urged Turkiye’s parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage the broader peace process.
Ankara has taken steps toward forming the commission, while the DEM and Ocalan have said that legal assurances and certain mechanisms were needed to smooth the PKK’s transition into democratic politics.
Omer Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan’s AK Party, said the disarmament process should not be allowed to drag on longer than a few months to avoid it becoming subject to provocations.
Erdogan has said the disarmament will enable the rebuilding of Turkiye’s southeast.
Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has said Turkiye spent nearly $1.8 trillion over the past five decades combating terrorism, endorsing the peace steps as an economic boon.
The end of NATO member Turkiye’s conflict with the PKK could have consequences across the region, including in neighboring Syria where the United States is allied with Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara deems a PKK offshoot.
Washington and Ankara want those Kurds to quickly integrate with Syria’s security structure, which has been undergoing reconfiguration since the fall in December of autocratic President Bashar Assad. PKK disarmament could add to this pressure, analysts say.
Gaza civil defense says Israeli strikes kill six
- In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes on Friday killed at least six people in the Palestinian territory’s north, including five at a school-turned-shelter.
“Five martyrs and others injured in an Israeli strike on Halima Al-Saadia School, which was sheltering displaced persons in Jabalia Al-Nazla, northern Gaza,” the agency said in a brief statement.
In a separate strike on Gaza City, to the south, the agency said at least one person was killed and several others wounded.
In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has recently intensified its operations in the Gaza Strip as the war against Hamas militants entered its 22nd month.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties.
A Palestinian speaking to AFP from southern Gaza on condition of anonymity said there were ongoing attacks and widespread devastation, with Israeli tanks seen near the city of Khan Yunis.
“The situation remains extremely difficult in the area – intense gunfire, intermittent air strikes, artillery shelling and ongoing bulldozing and destruction of displacement camps and agricultural land to the south, west and north of Al-Maslakh,” an area to Khan Yunis’s south, said the witness.
Francesca Albanese, UN investigator and critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, shocked by US sanctions
- Francesca Albanese: The powerful are trying to silence me for defending those without any power of their own
- Albanese accuses US officials of receiving Israeli leader with honor and standing side-by-side with someone facing an arrest warrant
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina: An independent UN investigator and outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza said Thursday that “it was shocking” to learn that the Trump administration had imposed sanctions on her but defiantly stood by her view on the war.
Francesca Albanese said in an interview with The Associated Press that the powerful were trying to silence her for defending those without any power of their own, “other than standing and hoping not to die, not to see their children slaughtered.”
“This is not a sign of power, it’s a sign of guilt,” the Italian human rights lawyer said.
The State Department’s decision to impose sanctions on Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, followed an unsuccessful US pressure campaign to force the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the UN’s top human rights body, to remove her from her post.
She is tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she has described as the “genocide” by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. Both Israel and the US have strongly denied that accusation.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on social media. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
The US announced the sanctions Wednesday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting Washington to meet with President Donald Trump and other officials about reaching a ceasefire deal in the war in Gaza. Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, which accuses him of crimes against humanity in his military offensive in Gaza.
In the interview, Albanese accused American officials of receiving Netanyahu with honor and standing side-by-side with someone wanted by the ICC, a court that neither the US nor Israel is a member of or recognizes. Trump imposed sanctions on the court in February.
“We need to reverse the tide, and in order for it to happen – we need to stand united,” she said. “They cannot silence us all. They cannot kill us all. They cannot fire us all.”
Albanese stressed that the only way to win is to get rid of fear and to stand up for the Palestinians and their right to an independent state.
The Trump administration’s stand “is not normal,” she said at the Sarajevo airport. She also defiantly repeated, “No one is free until Palestine is free.”
Albanese was en route to Friday’s 30th anniversary commemoration of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica where more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in a UN-protected safe zone were killed when it was overrun by Bosnian Serbs.
The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and the Center for Constitutional Rights opposed the US move.
“The imposition of sanctions on special rapporteurs is a dangerous precedent” and “is unacceptable,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
While Albanese reports to the Human Rights Council – not Secretary-General Antonio Guterres – the US and any other UN member are entitled to disagree with reports by the independent rapporteurs, “but we encourage them to engage with the UN human rights architecture.”
Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the council in February.
The war between Israel and Hamas began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people captive. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead but does not specify how many were fighters or civilians.
Nearly 21 months into the conflict that displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, the UN says hunger is rampant after a lengthy Israeli blockade on food entering the territory and medical care is extremely limited.
ICC warns of worsening atrocities in Darfur, cites evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity
- Court’s deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, tells UN Security Council the humanitarian situation in the region has reached an ‘intolerable’ level
- ‘People are being deprived of food and water. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponized. Abductions have become common practice,” she says
NEW YORK CITY: The International Criminal Court has “reasonable grounds to believe” that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed in Darfur, its deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, told the UN Security Council on Thursday.
The humanitarian situation in the region has reached an “intolerable” level, he warned.
Speaking in New York, Khan described an escalating crisis marked by widespread famine, targeted attacks on hospitals and aid convoys, and sexual violence.
“People are being deprived of food and water,” she said. “Rape and sexual violence are being weaponized. Abductions have become common practice. Things can still get worse.”
Her comments came amid escalating violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the Rapid Support Forces, one of two main rival military factions in the country, and allied groups have been accused of targeting civilians at displacement camps such as Zamzam and Abu Shouk, and during attacks on the regional capital, Al-Fashir.
Khan said the findings of the ICC were based on extensive evidence gathered from various sources over the past six months, including field missions to refugee camps in Chad, and cooperation with civil society organizations and UN fact-finding agencies.
“We have collected over 7,000 evidence items, documentary, testimonial and digital, supporting our conclusion,” she added.
Highlighting gender-based crimes as a key focus of the investigations, Khan detailed ongoing efforts to increase the visibility of such violations, which remain “underreported and insufficiently recognized.”
A dedicated team is working with Darfuri women and girls to gather testimonies of sexual violence, she said, adding: “There is an inescapable pattern of offending targeting gender and ethnicity through rape and sexual violence. These crimes are being given particular priority.”
There were signs of growing cooperation with the court from the Sudanese government, including a recent visit to Port Sudan that allowed investigators to identify potential new witnesses, Khan said, and a second visit is planned in the near future.
But she urged Sudanese authorities to take bolder steps, particularly in the execution of ICC warrants for the arrest of senior officials, including the former president, Omar Bashir, as well as Ahmad Harun and Abdul Raheem Mohammed Hussein, former officials wanted by the ICC over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Darfur conflict of the early 2000s.
“Transferring Mr. Harun now would carry exceptional weight,” Khan said. She noted that the charges against him closely resemble those at the heart of another ongoing case, against Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, a former Janjaweed militia leader accused by the ICC of orchestrating war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Darfur conflict. A verdict in that case is expected this year.
Khan urged the Security Council and the wider international community to act collectively to address the crisis and break what she described as a “seemingly never-ending cycle of violence fueled by impunity.”
She added: “Every single state here is appalled by what is happening in Darfur. Let us take our report as a blueprint. With your support, we can not only deliver justice but prevent this cycle of violence.”
Despite mounting challenges, including limited resources and obstruction on the ground, Khan said the ICC remains determined to pursue accountability in Darfur.
“We need your support now more than ever before,” she said. Though the ICC’s progress is “never sufficient, relative to the scale of the suffering,” if it can be reinforced through international support, “justice delivered collectively can reduce suffering and lay foundations for peace,” Khan added.
“If we can come together, if we can agree that such suffering needs the support of all those who are able to provide it, I believe the present crisis can ultimately demonstrate how justice delivered collectively can set the foundations for the reduction of suffering and the beginning of work towards peace.”
