KHARTOUM: Sudan’s warring sides accused each other on Thursday of being behind breaches of the latest cease-fire that was negotiated by Saudi Arabia and the US, now in its third day.
The one-week truce was violated only minutes after it came into effect on Monday night, with residents of the capital Khartoum reporting air strikes and artillery fire shaking the city.
There have since been further breaches of the cease-fire agreement, which is meant to allow for much-needed humanitarian aid to reach war-ravaged parts of the north African country.
It is the latest in a series of truces that have all been systematically violated.
Since April 15, Sudan’s capital and other parts of the country have been gripped by brutal urban warfare between the regular army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
But though the current cease-fire has been violated, it has allowed for a lull in fighting that has seen frightened residents cautiously venture out of their homes, some for the first time in weeks.
Many have gone out for supplies of food and water or to seek much-needed medical attention after nearly six weeks of fighting that has sharply depleted vital supplies and pushed the health care system to the brink of collapse.
In a statement issued late Wednesday, the RSF, which is led by Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, sought to place the blame for cease-fire breaches on the army led by Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan.
The army “launched a series of unwarranted attacks today,” the RSF said, adding that “our forces decisively repelled these assaults.”
“Our forces successfully shot down a SAF MiG jet fighter,” it said, reiterating however that it remained “committed to the humanitarian truce.”
The army responded Thursday morning, saying it had “countered an attack on armored vehicles by the militias of the Rapid Support Forces in a clear violation of the truce.”
The US, who brokered the cease-fire alongside Saudi Arabia, warned the warring parties against any further violations.
The State Department said that observers had detected the use of artillery, drones and military aircraft as well as fighting both in the capital Khartoum and in the western region of Darfur.
“We have continued to see violations of the cease-fire,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
“We retain our sanctions authority and if appropriate we will not hesitate to use that authority.”
The UN envoy for the Horn of Africa, Hanna Tetteh, said the continued fighting was “unacceptable and it must stop.”
Desperately needed aid has yet to reach the capital despite the fighting easing.
The conflict has so far killed more than 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
More than a million Sudanese people have been displaced, in addition to 300,000 who have fled to neighboring countries, according to the United Nations.
Conditions have been particularly alarming in Darfur, already ravaged by a conflict that erupted in 2003 and saw then president Omar Al-Bashir unleash the feared Janjaweed militia to crush a rebellion among ethnic minority groups.
The RSF traces its origins to the Janjaweed.
The UN’s refugee coordinator in Sudan, Toby Harward, said the town of Zalengei in Central Darfur state “has been under siege by armed militias for the last days.”
Numerous facilities “have been attacked and looted, civilians are unable to seek medical care as health care facilities are targeted, and gangs on motorcycles intimidate government workers and restrict civilian movements,” he added.
Representatives of the warring Sudanese generals have since early May been involved in negotiations in the Saudi city of Jeddah.
But analysts have repeatedly warned that the two generals are likely prepared for a prolonged conflict.
Sudan expert Alex de Waal described the conflict as being the result of a “calamitous failure of diplomacy.”
Burhan and Daglo had in 2021 staged a coup that unseated a civilian transitional government but later fell out in a bitter power struggle.
Sudan’s warring parties trade blame over truce breach
https://arab.news/vgj7s
Sudan’s warring parties trade blame over truce breach
- Cease-fire deal comes after five weeks of intensive warfare in Khartoum
- Latest in series of truces that have all been systematically violated
Leaders of Holy Land churches condemn Israeli settler violence during a West Bank visit
- The patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem called for the settlers to be held accountable by the Israeli authorities
- The Christian community in Israel and the Palestinian territories has dwindled as a percentage of the overall population over the decades
TAYBEH, West Bank: Top church leaders in the Holy Land asserted Monday that Israeli authorities “facilitate and enable” the presence of Israeli settlers who have intensified attacks in recent weeks on the only entirely Christian Palestinian village remaining in the occupied West Bank.
Speaking in the village, Taybeh, on a rare solidarity visit, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III and Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa denounced an incident last week when settlers set fires near the community’s church. They said that Israeli authorities failed to respond to emergency calls for help from the Palestinian community.
In a separate statement, the patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem demanded an investigation into the incident and called for the settlers to be held accountable by the Israeli authorities, “who facilitate and enable their presence around Taybeh.”
The church leaders also said that settlers had brought their cattle to graze on Palestinian lands in the area, set fire to several homes last month and put up a sign reading “there is no future for you here.”
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to the allegations.
Pizzaballa, the top Catholic cleric in Jerusalem, said he believed the West Bank was becoming a lawless area.
“The only law (in the West Bank) is that of power, of those who have the force, not the law. We must work for the law to return to this part of the country, so anyone can appeal to the law to enforce their rights,” Pizzaballa told reporters.
He and Theophilos prayed together in the church of St. George, whose religious site dates back centuries, adjacent to the area where settlers ignited the fires.
The statement from the heads of churches comes as Palestinians report a surge of settler violence. On Sunday, hundreds descended on the village of Al-Mazraa a-Sharqiya, south of Taybeh, for the funeral of two young men killed during a settler attack on Friday.
The Christian community in Israel and the Palestinian territories has dwindled as a percentage of the overall population over the decades, with experts citing lower birthrates and emigration by people fleeing conflict or seeking better opportunities abroad. Christians now make up a tiny percentage of the population.
Jordanian Armed Forces’ Piercing Star exercise improves skills in eastern region
- Tactical drill involved acquisition, neutralization of targets, medical evacuation, using unmanned aerial systems
- Princess Basma Battalion is subordinate unit of the Eastern Military Region, includes units from Ar-Ramtha, Mafraq near Iraqi, Syrian borders
LONDON: Maj. Gen. Yousef Ahmed Al-Huneiti, the chairman of the Jordanian Joint Chiefs of Staff, oversaw a tactical exercise on Sunday as part of military drills by the Princess Basma 3rd Mechanized Infantry Battalion.
The Piercing Star drill was designed to improve personnel’s skills and capabilities in various field conditions, the Jordan News Agency reported.
It involved the acquisition and neutralization of targets, medical evacuation procedures, and the use of unmanned aerial systems for reconnaissance and the destruction of high-value targets, Petra added.
Princess Basma Battalion is a subordinate unit of the Eastern Military Region, comprising units from the cities of Ar-Ramtha and Mafraq near the Iraqi and Syrian borders. It employed small arms, crew-served weapons, sniper fire, mortar, anti-armor ordnance, and close air support from the Royal Jordanian Air Force during the drill.
Al-Huneiti received a briefing from the regional commander and the battalion commander regarding the military exercise, which was also attended by the assistant for operations and training in the armed forces.
Palestinian president says Hamas must hand over weapons in Gaza
- Mahmoud Abbas said Hamas must recognize that there should be ‘one system, one law, and one legitimate weapon’
- Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 after armed clashes with PA forces, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 700 Palestinians
LONDON: The Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas reaffirmed that Hamas will not take part in governing the coastal enclave of the post-war Gaza Strip during a meeting with former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in Amman.
Abbas said Hamas must surrender its weapons to the PA and participate in political actions aligned with the principles of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Neither Hamas nor Islamic Jihad is part of the PLO, and both groups have long rejected calls to join what Palestinians consider their sole political representative since the 1960s.
Abbas said that Hamas must recognize that in the Palestinian territories, there should be “one system, one law, and one legitimate weapon,” during his meeting on Sunday evening with Blair, who served as the special envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East from 2007 to 2015.
Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 after armed clashes with PA forces, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 700 Palestinians, according to an official tally. Since then, it has engaged in several conflicts with Israel, the most recent being the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, which resulted in the deaths and abduction of several hundred people and prompted an ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, which has killed over 58,000 Palestinians.
Abbas called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, and the flow of humanitarian aid.
He stressed the need for a two-state solution and the importance of the French-Saudi-sponsored conference, scheduled for the end of July in New York, to gain support for establishing a Palestinian state.
Gaza truce talks limp on, Trump hopeful to have deal ‘straightened out’
- The US is backing a 60-day ceasefire with a phased release of hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza and talks to end the conflict
DOHA: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas entered a second week on Monday, with US President Donald Trump still hopeful of a breakthrough and as more than 20 people were killed on the ground.
The indirect negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha, appeared deadlocked at the weekend after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of hostages.
In Gaza, the Palestinian territory’s civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed in the latest Israeli strikes on Monday in and around Gaza City, and Khan Younis in the south.
One strike on a tent in Khan Younis on Sunday killed the parents and three brothers of a young Gazan boy, who only survived as he was outside getting water, the boy’s uncle told AFP.
Belal Al-Adlouni called for revenge for “every drop of blood” saying it “will not be forgotten and will not die with the passage of time, nor with displacement or with death.”
AFP reporters in southern Israel meanwhile saw large plumes of smoke in northern Gaza, where the military said fighter jets had pounded Hamas targets over the weekend.
Trump, who met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last week, is keen to secure a truce in the 21-month war, which was sparked by Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
“Gaza, we are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week,” he told reporters late on Sunday, echoing similarly optimistic comments he made on July 4.
A Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Saturday that Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in over 40 percent of Gaza and plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.
In response, a senior Israeli political official accused Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin headed to Brussels on Monday for talks between the EU and its Mediterranean neighbors.
But the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority denied media reports that any meeting between the two was on the agenda.
In Israel, Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire when a deal for a temporary truce is agreed and only when Hamas lays down its weapons.
But he is under pressure to quickly wrap up the war, with military casualties mounting and with public frustration both at the continued captivity of the hostages and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.
Politically, his fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but Netanyahu is seen as beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.
He also faces a backlash over the feasibility and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house displaced Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has described the proposed facility as a “concentration camp” and Israel’s own security establishment is reported to be unhappy at the plan.
Israeli media said the costs were discussed at a security cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s office on Sunday night, just hours before his latest court appearance in a long-running corruption trial on Monday.
Hamas’s attacks on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of which 49 are still being held, including 27 that the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,026 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Gaza ‘humanitarian city’ would be ‘concentration camp’: Ex-Israeli PM
- Ehud Olmert slams proposal by defense minister, saying it amounts to ethnic cleansing
- He condemns settler crimes in West Bank, calling extremist Israeli ministers ‘enemies from within’
London: Plans to build a “humanitarian city” for displaced Palestinians in Gaza would amount to creating a concentration camp, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said.
The plan, outlined by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz last week and backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, proposes to relocate around 600,000 Palestinians — and eventually Gaza’s entire population of over 2 million — to the site in Rafah. Once there, they would only be allowed to leave if traveling abroad.
“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,” Olmert told The Guardian. “If they (Palestinians) will be deported into the new ‘humanitarian city,’ then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing.”
He added: “When they build a camp where they (say they plan to) ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this (is that) it is not to save (Palestinians).
“It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have, at least.”
Israeli legal experts and journalists wrote to Katz last week warning that “under certain conditions it could amount to the crime of genocide.”
Olmert also condemned the uptick in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, criticizing complicity by Israeli authorities and calling the deaths of two men recently, including a US citizen, war crimes.
“(It is) unforgivable. Unacceptable. There are continuous operations organised, orchestrated in the most brutal, criminal manner by a large group,” he said.
“There is no way that they can operate in such a consistent, massive and widespread manner without a framework of support and protection which is provided by the (Israeli) authorities in the (Occupied) Territories.”
Discussing extreme right-wing Israeli Cabinet ministers pushing the violence in the West Bank and using language such as “cleanse” in relation to Gaza, Olmert called them “the enemy from within,” warning that their rhetoric and actions would fuel anti-Israel sentiment.
“In the US there is more and more and more expanding expressions of hatred to Israel,” he said. “We make a discount to ourselves saying: ‘They are antisemites.’ I don’t think that they are only antisemites, I think many of them are anti-Israel because of what they watch on television, what they watch on social networks.
“This is a painful but normal reaction of people who say: ‘Hey, you guys have crossed every possible line.’”
Olmert said that although he backed the initial invasion of Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attack, he is “ashamed and heartbroken” at how Israel’s government has prosecuted the war and abandoned peace negotiations.
“What can I do to change the attitude, except for number one, recognising these evils, and number two, to criticise them and to make sure the international public opinion knows there are (other) voices, many voices in Israel?” he asked.
Saying he believes the Israeli military’s actions have caused “the killing of a large number of non-involved people,” he added: “I cannot refrain from accusing this government of being responsible for war crimes committed.”
However, he voiced hope that peace and a two-state solution are still possible, telling The Guardian that he is working with former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Qidwa to lobby the international community to help make it happen.
