GENEVA: A UN-appointed mission to Libya said on Monday there are “probable mass graves” yet to be investigated, possibly as many as 100, in a town where hundreds of bodies have already been found and it urged Tripoli to continue searching.
The report to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council this week details how a militia run by seven brothers executed and imprisoned hundreds of people between 2016-2020, sometimes keeping them in tiny oven-like structures called “the boxes” which were set alight during interrogations.
The evidence of kidnappings, murder and torture in Tarhouna by the independent Fact-Finding Mission represents one of the most egregious examples of human rights abuses in the turbulent period since long-ruling Muammar Qaddafi’s ousting in 2011.
Among the victims were the disabled as well as women and children, the 51-page report said.
Based on the testimonies of residents and two site visits, the mission found “reasonable grounds” that the Kaniyat militia committed crimes against humanity. It identified four commanders who participated directly in them.
Already, Libyan authorities have recovered 247 bodies in mass and individual grave sites in the Tarhouna area in Western Libya. Many were still handcuffed and blindfolded.
The mission used satellite imagery showing signs of soil disturbances among other evidence to identify three new likely sites. But there could be many more, it said, citing an existing grave known as ‘The Landfill’ where just a tiny fraction of the site has been investigated.
“According to insider knowledge, there might still be up to 100 as of yet undiscovered mass graves,” the report said.
It is not immediately clear how the findings will reflect on Libyan authorities. Libya’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not respond for a request for comment.
At one stage, the Kaniyat was aligned with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord but later with the eastern Libyan National Army led by commander Khalifa Haftar that tried, unsuccessfully, to overthrow the National Accord administration. The militia no longer holds authority in Tarhouna. The surviving leaders of the Kaniyat are mostly believed to have fled to areas of eastern Libya under Haftar’s control.
In its conclusions, the FFM calls on Libyan authorities to continue searching for the graves. It also urges them to establish a special tribunal to prosecute international crimes.
However, the report refers to difficulties with cooperation in the past. Diplomats and UN sources told Reuters that Libya had in the past expressed reservations about continuing the mission, which expires this month.
A resolution is currently before the Geneva-based council to keep investigations going for another nine months, which is less than some had hoped for. A decision is expected this week.
UN rights mission finds ‘probable’ mass graves in Libya
https://arab.news/vsppy
UN rights mission finds ‘probable’ mass graves in Libya
- Militia run by seven brothers executed and imprisoned hundreds of people between 2016-2020
- Surviving leaders of the Kaniyat are mostly believed to have fled to areas of eastern Libya
Qatar says sanctions on Syria must be lifted quickly
“We call for intensified efforts to expedite the lifting of international sanctions on Syria,” foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari told a regular briefing.
Qatar’s call came a day after a high-level delegation visited Damascus. The Qatari embassy there reopened on Sunday, ending a 13-year rift between the two countries.
“Qatar’s position is clear,” Ansari said. “It’s necessary to lift the sanctions quickly, given that what led to these sanctions is no longer there and that what led to these sanctions were the crimes of the former regime.”
Doha was one of the main backers of the armed rebellion that erupted after Assad’s government crushed a peaceful uprising in 2011.
Unlike several of its neighbors, Qatar had remained a stern critic of Assad and did not renew ties with Syria despite its return to the Arab diplomatic fold last year.
The international community has not rushed to lift sanctions on Syria, waiting to see how the new authorities exercise their power.
Israeli forces kill one Palestinian in West Bank refugee camp
- Palestinian news agency WAFA said Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem died after snipers shot him and fired on the ambulance crew
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man in a dawn raid on Tuesday on a refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.
The Israeli military said the man was killed in a “counter-terrorism” operation that resulted in 18 arrests, while the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem died after snipers shot him and fired on ambulance crew.
Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel triggered the current war in Gaza and a wider conflict on several fronts.
WAFA said Israeli bulldozers demolished infrastructure in the camp, including homes, shops, part of the walls of Al-Salam mosque, which they barricaded off, and part of the camp’s water network.
Israeli army forces patients out of a north Gaza hospital
CAIRO: Israeli troops forced the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and many patients, some of them on foot, arrived at another hospital miles away in Gaza City, the territory’s health ministry said on Tuesday.
The Indonesian Hospital is one of the Gaza Strip’s few still partially functioning hospitals, on its northern edge, an area that has been under intense Israeli military pressure for nearly three months.
Israel says its operation around the three northern Gaza communities surrounding the hospital — Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia — is targeting Hamas militants.
Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to permanently depopulate northern Gaza to create a buffer zone, which Israel denies.
Munir Al-Bursh, director of the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, said the Israeli army had ordered hospital officials to evacuate it on Monday, before storming it in the early hours of Tuesday and forcing those inside to leave.
He said two other medical facilities in northern Gaza, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan Hospitals, were also subject to frequent assaults by Israeli troops operating in the area.
“Occupation forces have taken the three hospitals out of medical service because of the repeated attacks that undermined them and destroyed parts of them,” Bursh said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
Officials at the three hospitals have so far refused orders by Israel to evacuate their facilities or leave patients unattended since the new military offensive began on Oct. 5.
Israel says it has been facilitating the delivery of medical supplies, fuel and the transfer of patients to other hospitals in the enclave during that period in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said they resisted a new order by the army to evacuate hundreds of patients, their companions and staff, adding that the hospital has been under constant Israeli fire that damaged generators, oxygen pumps and parts of the building.
Israeli forces have operated in the vicinity of the hospital since Monday, medics said.
NEW STRIKES
Meanwhile, Israeli bombardment continued elsewhere in the enclave and medics said at least nine Palestinians, including a member of the civil emergency service, were killed in four separate military strikes across the enclave on Tuesday.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas has since killed more than 45,200 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
A fresh bid by mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States to end the fighting and release Israeli and foreign hostages has gained momentum this month, though no breakthrough has yet been reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said progress had been made in hostage negotiations with Hamas but that he did not know how much longer it would take to see the results.
Gaps between Israel and Hamas over a possible Gaza ceasefire have narrowed, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials’ remarks on Monday, though crucial differences have yet to be resolved.
Syrian ex-rebel factions agree to merge under defense ministry
DAMASCUS: Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa reached an agreement on Tuesday with former rebel faction chiefs to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the defense ministry, according to a statement from the new administration.
Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Bashir had said last week that the ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Bashar Assad’s army.
Sharaa will face the daunting task of trying to avoid clashes between the myriad groups.
The country’s new rulers appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency that toppled Bashar Assad, as defense minister in the interim government.
Syria’s historic ethnic and religious minorities include Muslim Kurds and Shiites — who feared during the civil war that any future Sunni Islamist rule would imperil their way of life — as well as Syriac, Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christians, and the Druze community.
Sharaa has told Western officials visiting him that the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group he heads, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, will neither seek revenge against the former regime nor repress any religious minority.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Israel PM vows to fight ‘forces of evil’ in message to Christians
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday acknowledged what he described as the steadfast support of Christians worldwide for Israel’s fight against the “forces of evil.”
Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories were preparing for a somber wartime Christmas for the second consecutive year, with the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip casting a shadow over the season.
“You’ve stood by our side resiliently, consistently, forcefully as Israel defends our civilization against barbarism,” Netanyahu said in a video message to Christians across the world.
“We seek peace with all those who wish peace with us, but we will do whatever is necessary to defend the one and only Jewish state, the repository and the source of our common heritage.
“Israel leads the world in fighting the forces of evil and tyranny, but our battle is not yet over. With your support, and with God’s help, I assure you, we shall prevail,” Netanyahu said.
The war in Gaza, which erupted on October 7, 2023 following a deadly Hamas attack on Israel, has significantly impacted the Christian communities in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 45,317 people, a majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
Israel is home to approximately 185,000 Christians, accounting for about 1.9 percent of the population, with Arab Christians comprising nearly 76 percent of the community, according to data from the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
According to Palestinian officials, about 47,000 Christians reside in the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip.
