Frankly Speaking: Is Israel committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza?

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Updated 12 November 2023
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Frankly Speaking: Is Israel committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza?

  • Official who recently resigned from OHCHR accuses the UN of failing to acknowledge Israel’s “genocide” in latest conflict
  • Craig Mokhiber says Israeli PM Netanyahu’s aim is not to save hostages or overthrow Hamas but remove civilians from Gaza

DUBAI: A senior UN official recently left his post at the UN Human Rights Office, accusing the world body of failing the people of Gaza and showing timidity in confronting the ongoing genocide and apartheid there, despite a wealth of evidence to support these charges.

Appearing on “Frankly Speaking,” the Arab News current affairs show, Craig Mokhiber decried “the hesitancy on the part of the UN officially to talk about Israeli apartheid in Palestine despite the fact that every major international human rights organization … has decided that the crime of apartheid is manifest there. Or, as most recently raised by my (resignation) letter, the question of genocide as defined by UN Convention.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Mokhiber discussed whether his resignation would change anything at the OHCHR, why he says Israeli lobbyists are putting pressure on UN leaders, the need for more empathy for the people of Gaza, and if anyone could put an end to the slaughter of Palestinian civilians.

The UN’s apparent failure to address the worsening situation in Gaza also came in for criticism at the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit in Riyadh on Saturday.

In his opening remarks, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said: “We are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe that demonstrates the failure of the (UN) Security Council and the international community to put an end to the flagrant Israeli violations of international laws and norms and international humanitarian law.”

The crown prince added that the situation in Gaza posed a threat to international security and stability, and that all leaders must unite to take effective action to confront the situation.




Craig Mokhiber, former director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaks to Katie Jensen, host of Frankly Speaking, on issues related to the Gaza humanitarian crisis. (AN Photo)

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said: “We have a responsibility to exercise all possible pressure on the international community, on the United Nations, and on the Security Council, to take up its responsibility for international peace and stability.”

When he stepped down as the director of the New York office of the OHCHR, Mokhiber labeled the US, UK and much of Europe as complicit in the ongoing Israeli military offensive in Gaza. As of Sunday, more than 11,000 people had been killed in Gaza, of whom more than 4,500 were children, according to Palestinian health officials.

Despite being a legal term, genocide is seen as overly politicized these days. But as an international human rights lawyer, Mokhiber is confident that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount indisputably to genocide.

“First of all, I deal with this as a human rights lawyer, and that means that I work from the definition that’s contained in international human rights law in the convention on genocide of the United Nations, where a very clear definition is laid out together with what the elements are,” he told Katie Jensen, the host of “Frankly Speaking.”

He added: “There are basically two pieces there. One is intent to destroy. The second, a catalog of specific acts, is beyond dispute. We are talking about mass killing.

“We’re talking about serious harm being caused, including physical harm, about imposing conditions of life designed to bring about the destruction of the population, again beyond dispute because we’re all well aware of the closure and siege of the Gaza Strip since 2015, which is specifically designed to limit food, medicine, adequate housing, water, sanitation, freedom of movement, all of the conditions of life necessary for survival.”

He continued: “Normally when you’re investigating genocide, you have to dig through dusty archives to find records to prove intent. In this case, because of the climate of impunity over several decades, you’ve got Israeli officials publicly expressing genocidal intent, including the president, the prime minister, senior Cabinet ministers, and senior military officials, explicitly calling for wiping out all of Gaza, explicitly dehumanizing Palestinians, explicitly calling for no distinction between combatants and noncombatants.

“Even the prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) invoked a biblical verse, calling for the wiping out of the entire population, sparing none of them, including women, men, children, and suckling babies, as well as their livestock. To quote this biblical verse (was clear) indication of genocidal intent, with such a long catalog of specifically enumerated actions (listed in the genocide convention) taking place.

“In a context where we’ve seen successive ethnic purges going back to 1948 with this intent, this is the clearest prima facie case of genocide that we have seen.”

Mokhiber addressed accusations by some that Palestinian civilians in Gaza were complicit in the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel because they voted for Hamas more than 15 years ago and have refused to overthrow the party. He said this was “further evidence of the kind of genocidal rhetoric, which has gone far beyond government officials and has seeped into the public consciousness as well.”

He added: “If you talk only about Gaza, you’re talking about 2.3 million civilians in a densely populated open-air prison. They are literally caged in that area, can’t move in, can’t move out, are regularly denied adequate food, water, shelter, water sanitation, any of the things necessary for a decent life.”

Talking about his experience living with Palestinians in Gaza in the 1990s, he described the currently embattled enclave as “one of the best places I’ve ever lived — not because of the conditions on the ground, but because of the people that I met.”




In a wide-ranging interview, Mokhiber discussed recently leaving his post at the UN Human Rights Office, accusing the world body of failing the people of Gaza and showing timidity in confronting the ongoing genocide and apartheid there. (AN Photo)

He said: “The images that are portrayed in the media and by politicians do not capture the reality of the Palestinian people. If you’re able to look into the eyes of a Palestinian child or woman or man or grandmother or grandfather, if you’re able to, to know them as a people, to see that just like you, they laugh and they cry, and they fall in love and they have parties, all of the things that your own family does.

“To see the humanity of the Palestinian people, it becomes impossible to pursue these kinds of genocidal policies that many governments are pursuing. It becomes impossible to dismiss them as the ‘other.’ They are not the ‘other,’ they are ‘us.’ They are you. When you’re doing human rights work, you feel a lot of solidarity with the people you work with around the world.

“To see them every day, to see their smiles and their tears and their laughter. To love people from that community, that changes it. And we need a, a heck of a lot more of that, including to know that at this moment, as we’re speaking, there are children and women and men buried under rubble, their bones broken, their skin burned, very little oxygen in the space they find themselves; dying slow, excruciating deaths as people above try to dig them out with their bare hands. That’s what this is.”

Arguing that the Israeli military assault is “not a war on Hamas,” he said the people of Gaza are “not numbers and statistics.”

He said: “This is not some barbarous population living in some obscure place of the world. These are human beings. These are you and me. If we can just get beyond the dehumanization and start thinking of everyone, Christians, Muslims and Jews, as equal human beings, that’s where the solutions are going to be found.”

Mokhiber asserted that Netanyahu’s aim is not to remove Hamas but to remove everyday civilians from Gaza, which amounts to a textbook case of genocide.

“Netanyahu certainly bears responsibility for the violations that cause Hamas to exist in, in the first place. (But) his motives at this moment are clearly not to save the hostages, because they’re dropping bombs on where the hostages are living,” he said.

Referring to the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza, he said: “They’re clearly not just to battle with Hamas because what they are doing is wholesale destruction and slaughter.

“What’s happening in Gaza now is an effort to purge the remaining part of Palestine that is Gaza. Most of it to be bombed to the ground, the rest of it to be rendered unlivable in the hopes that any surviving Palestinians will then be compelled for survival’s sake to leave for the Rafah border and either fade away in the Sinai Peninsula or enter into the Palestinian diaspora. So, the takeover of historic Palestine will then be complete.”

Mokhiber further believes that countries such as the US and the UK are in breach of their international humanitarian law obligations in the Palestinian crisis by providing financing, arms, intelligence and diplomatic support to Israel, and so could face legal liability for their actions.




This picture taken on November 12, 2023 from a position along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel shows a smoke plume erupting during Israeli bombardment on the Palestinian enclave. (AFP)

He said: “The US and the UK are parties to these international conventions. They’re bound by international humanitarian law, international human rights law, which is clear. First, the Geneva Conventions don’t only require that you respect them in your own conduct, they require that all high contracting parties ensure respect vis-a-vis others over whom they have influence, in this case Israel.

“Not only have the US and the UK and others not done what they needed to do to stop this, but they’ve actually been actively complicit. The US, for example, in providing financing, arms intelligence, support, diplomatic cover, even the use of the veto in the Security Council.

“Those are direct acts of complicity in breach of their humanitarian law obligations. The crime of genocide as defined in the convention includes the act of genocide, attempted genocide, incitement to genocide, conspiracy for genocide, and complicity in genocide.

“Active support going on, even while these acts are taking place, exposes the US, the UK and other states that have been involved so directly to legal liability for their actions. What they should be doing is using all their influence, diplomatic and otherwise, to stop what’s happening, including stopping the arming, financing, intelligence support, diplomatic cover (for the Israeli government), so that there is accountability, so that human life can be saved and human dignity protected.”

Asked what took him so long to resign given that he had made clear his concern that the rights of the Palestinian people were not being addressed, Mokhiber acknowledged that the conversation began in March between himself and the OHCHR in the wake of “a series of Israeli atrocities on the West Bank, including some military attacks on civilians in the West Bank and the pogroms by Israeli settlers in Hawara.”

He said: “At that point, I was speaking quite publicly about those violations in public and on social media. The UN was taking a more careful, inappropriately trepidatious, approach to those events.

“I was speaking particularly forcefully about that publicly, as I have on human rights situations in countries around the world for 32 years. But what happened in this case, there was an organized campaign by a group of Israeli lobby organizations that decided to target me by smearing me on social media, and also by (handing a protest note to) the UN in an effort to have me punished, in spite of the fact that I’m a UN human rights official, whose job it is to speak out on human rights violations.

“That created an atmosphere where there was even more trepidation and an effort on the part of the UN to tell me to be silent on these issues, which was something that I clearly could not do.

“So, already in March, as a result of this, I wrote and indicated, one, that I thought that this deference to powerful states — because the critique was coming also from Western countries and to these lobby groups — was undercutting our principled application of UN norms and standards, and that we needed to stand up against these things and not be intimidated into silence by them. To the contrary, I would encourage that we should be speaking out more loudly.”




sraeli army soldiers return after searching for human remains following the October 7 attack carried out by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip, near a position along the border with southern Israel on November 12. (AFP)

As opposed to most politicians who are calling for a two-state solution, Mokhiber believes the world must support a single democratic secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Told that the only other known politician who called for it was the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, he responded that there are a lot of public figures around the world who have been calling for it for “many, many years, including people from the human rights community who see this as consistent with our standards.”

Explaining why he did not consider a single-state solution unconventional, he said: “The interesting thing is that in every other situation around the world, the international community calls for solutions based upon equality between all of the people there. They call for a democratic secular state with equal rights for everybody who is involved in the application of international human rights standards.

“It’s only in this particular situation that there’s been a kind of muzzle around this consistency. So, it’s a very conventional response. It’s just that it’s been constrained by an application in this one case. The reality is that there is already one state de facto: the entire area of historic Palestine in Israel is controlled by the Israeli government. There is nothing left in the West Bank and Gaza for a viable, sustainable Palestinian state as a second state.

“Even if they were to adopt that, it wouldn’t remedy the central human rights challenge because Palestinians inside the Green Line would still be second-class citizens, they would have no right to return, so on and so forth. (The two-state solution) never answered that. And the question is, if we demand equality everywhere else, in this case, equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, why do we not demand it in the case of Israel and Palestine?”

Mokhiber firmly rejected the notion that advocating for a single state was effectively a call for the end of Israel’s Jewish state status, the existential idea on which the state of Israel was founded some 75 years ago.

“Netanyahu’s government doesn’t even agree with stopping a genocide. They are not my audience,” he said.

“This is not a call for the end of Israel; this is a call for the salvation of Israel and Palestine. It’s a call for the end to apartheid and the end to settler colonialism, and the embrace of the norms and standards of the UN that call for democratic secular states with equal rights for all of the people who are there to be protected.”


Israel army sets limits on nighttime movement in south Lebanon

Updated 3 sec ago
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Israel army sets limits on nighttime movement in south Lebanon

Residents will be barred from traveling south of the Litani River

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army announced restrictions Wednesday on people’s movements in south Lebanon after dark, hours after a ceasefire with Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah took effect.
Residents will be barred from traveling south of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, between 1500 GMT and 0500 GMT Thursday, military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X. They will also be barred from returning to villages the army has ordered evacuated, he added.

Lebanon’s Berri reprises key mediator role in ceasefire deal

Updated 6 min 55 sec ago
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Lebanon’s Berri reprises key mediator role in ceasefire deal

  • Berri said Lebanon was closing “a historical moment that was the most dangerous that Lebanon has ever experienced”
  • He appealed to Lebanese to show unity for the sake of Lebanon

BEIRUT: Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri reprised his role as a key interlocutor between Hezbollah and the United States as Washington sought to mediate an end to the war with Israel, drawing on decades of experience to help clinch the deal.
It has underlined the sway the 86-year-old still holds over Lebanon, particularly the Shiite Muslim community in which he has loomed large for decades, and has been seen as a steadying influence since Israel killed Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, in September.
Addressing Lebanese in a televised speech on Wednesday, Berri said Lebanon was closing “a historical moment that was the most dangerous that Lebanon has ever experienced,” and appealed to Lebanese to show unity for the sake of Lebanon.
Berri rose to prominence as head of the Shiite Amal Movement during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war. He has served as parliament speaker — the highest role for a Shiite in Lebanon’s sectarian order — since 1992.
Hezbollah’s new leader Sheikh Naim Qassem endorsed Berri as a negotiator, calling him the group’s “big brother.” US envoy Amos Hochstein met Berri repeatedly during numerous visits to Beirut aiming to broker an end to the hostilities which were fought in parallel with the Gaza war and escalated dramatically in September.
It echoed the role Berri played in helping to bring an end to the last major war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.
Diplomats say his role has been all the more important because Lebanon is without a president, its cabinet has only partial authority, and there are few ways to access Hezbollah, which is branded a terrorist group by the United States.
“When you come to Lebanon now, he is really the only person worth meeting. He is the state,” a Beirut-based diplomat said.
He rose to global prominence in 1985 by helping negotiate the release of 39 Americans held hostage in Beirut by Shiite militants who hijacked a US airliner during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.
His election as speaker after the civil war coincided with Nasrallah’s rise to leadership of Hezbollah. Together, they led the “Shiite duo,” a reference to the two parties that dominated Shiite political representation and much of the state.
A diplomat who frequently visits Berri said: “He’s the trusted partner of Hezbollah, which makes him very important, but there is also a clear limit to what he can do, be it due to Hezbollah or Iranian stances.”
Israeli fire has hit areas where Berri’s Amal Movement holds sway, including the city of Tyre.

IMPROVING SHI’ITES’ STANDING
Born in 1938 in Sierra Leone to an emigrant merchant family from Tibnine, Berri was raised in Lebanon and was active in politics by the time he was at university.
Many in the once downtrodden Shiite community applaud Berri for helping improve their standing in a sectarian system where privileges were skewed toward Christians and Sunni Muslims.
A trained lawyer, Berri took the helm of Amal after its founder, Imam Musa Sadr, disappeared during a visit to Libya.
Berri was behind the military rise of Amal, which fought against nearly all the main parties to the civil war including Hezbollah, which later became an ally.
After the civil war, Berri’s Shiite followers joined the state apparatus and security agencies en masse, and he appeared to move in political lockstep with Hezbollah.
When a 2006 US embassy cable raised questions over his true feelings toward Hezbollah on its publication in 2010, he dismissed it, declaring that Nasrallah “is like myself.”
In 2023, Berri’s Amal fighters joined Hezbollah in firing rockets against Israel in solidarity with Gaza when Israel began its offensive after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Foreign envoys began visiting Beirut and meeting Berri to try to halt exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border, and sought to convince Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River running some 30 km (20 miles) north of the frontier.
Berri told one foreign official “it would be easier to move the Litani River south to the border than to push Hezbollah north of the Litani,” a source close to Berri told Reuters.
But Berri’s opponents have also criticized him as part of the sectarian elite that steered Lebanon into economic ruin in 2019, when the financial system collapsed after decades of state corruption.
Others blame him for refusing to call a parliamentary session for lawmakers to elect a president, leaving the top Christian post in government empty for more than two years.
Berri’s role as a diplomatic conduit has irked Hezbollah’s political rivals, such as the Christian Lebanese Forces, who say any negotiations must be carried out by Lebanon’s president.


Iran reserves right to react to Israeli airstrikes, welcomes Lebanon ceasefire

Updated 40 min 26 sec ago
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Iran reserves right to react to Israeli airstrikes, welcomes Lebanon ceasefire

  • Asked whether the ceasefire could lead to an easing of tensions between Israel and Iran, Araghchi said: “It depends on the behavior of Israel“
  • “Of course, we reserve the right to react to the recent Israeli aggression, but we do consider all developments in the region“

LISBON: Tehran reserves the right to react to Israeli airstrikes last month on Iran but also bears in mind other developments in the region, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday.
Araghchi told reporters during a trip to Lisbon that Iran welcomed Tuesday’s ceasefire agreement in Lebanon and hoped it could lead to a permanent ceasefire. The ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah came into effect on Wednesday under an agreement brokered by the United States and France.
Asked whether the ceasefire could lead to an easing of tensions between Israel and Iran, he said: “It depends on the behavior of Israel.”
“Of course, we reserve the right to react to the recent Israeli aggression, but we do consider all developments in the region,” he said.
Israel struck targets in Iran on Oct. 26 in retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage against Israel on Oct. 1.
Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said in an interview published by Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Sunday that his country was preparing to “respond” to Israel.
Although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday Hezbollah had been “set back decades,” Araghchi said the armed group had not been weakened by Israel’s killing of many of its leaders since January and by its ground offensive against the group since early October.
Hezbollah has been able to reorganize itself and fight back effectively, Araghchi said.
“This is the main reason why Israel accepted the ceasefire...every time they (Hezbollah) lose their leaders or their commanders, they become bigger in both numbers and their strength,” he said.
His remarks echoed comments by a senior Hezbollah official, Hassan Fadlallah, who said the group would emerge from the war stronger and more numerous.


Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire holds in first hours, Lebanese civilians start to return home

A driver waves the flag of Hezbollah while passing a building destroyed in recent Israeli strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Updated 4 min 3 sec ago
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Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire holds in first hours, Lebanese civilians start to return home

  • Families return to their homes in the most heavily bombed ares of Lebanon
  • Lebanon’s army says it was preparing to deploy to the south of the country as part of ceasefire agreement

BEIRUT: A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah held on Wednesday after the two sides struck a deal brokered by the US and France, a rare feat of diplomacy in the Middle East wracked by two wars and several proxy conflicts for over a year.
The agreement ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in years but Israel is still fighting its other arch foe the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Lebanon’s army, tasked with ensuring the ceasefire lasts, said it was preparing to deploy to the south of the country, a region Israel heavily bombarded in its battle against Hezbollah, along with eastern cities and towns and the armed group’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Cars and vans piled high with mattresses, suitcases and even furniture streamed through the heavily-bombed southern port city of Tyre, heading south. Fighting had escalated drastically over the past two months, forcing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes.
Israel’s military said on Wednesday its forces were still on Lebanese territory and urged residents of southern Lebanese villages who had been ordered to evacuate in recent months to delay returning home until further notice from the Israeli military. Israeli troops have pushed around 6 km (4 miles) into Lebanon in a series of ground incursions launched in September.
Israel said it identified Hezbollah operatives returning to areas near the border and had opened fire to prevent them from coming closer. There were no immediate signs that the incident would undermine the ceasefire.
The agreement, which promises to end a conflict across the Israeli-Lebanese border that has killed thousands of people since it was ignited by the Gaza war last year, is a major achievement for the US in the waning days of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Diplomatic efforts will now turn to shattered Gaza, where Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israeli communities.
Israel has said its military aim in Lebanon had been to ensure the safe return of about 60,000 Israelis who fled from their communities along the northern border when Hezbollah started firing rockets at them in support of Hamas in Gaza.
In Lebanon, some cars flew national flags, others honked, and one woman could be seen flashing the victory sign with her fingers as people started to return to homes they had fled.
Many of the villages the people were likely returning to have been destroyed.
Hussam Arrout, a father of four said he was itching to return to his home.
“The Israelis haven’t withdrawn in full, they’re still on the edge. So we decided to wait until the army announces that we can go in. Then we’ll turn the cars on immediately and go to the village,” he said.
Announcing the ceasefire, Biden spoke at the White House on Tuesday shortly after Israel’s security cabinet approved the agreement in a 10-1 vote.
“This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,” Biden said. “What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed to threaten the security of Israel again.”
Israel will gradually withdraw its forces over 60 days as Lebanon’s army takes control of territory near its border with Israel to ensure that Hezbollah does not rebuild its infrastructure there after a costly war, Biden said.
He said his administration was also pushing for an elusive ceasefire in Gaza.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the group “appreciates” Lebanon’s right to reach an agreement which protects its people, and hopes for a deal to end the Gaza war.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US would start its renewed push for a Gaza ceasefire on Wednesday.
But without a similar agreement yet in Gaza, many residents said they felt abandoned.
“We hope that all Arab and Western countries, and all people with merciful hearts and consciences...implement a truce here because we are tired,” said displaced Gazan Malak Abu Laila.
Egypt and Qatar, which along with the United States have tried unsuccessfully to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza, welcomed the Lebanon truce. Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday it hoped it would lead to a similar agreement to end the Gaza war.
Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the Houthis that have attacked Israel from Yemen, said it also welcomed the ceasefire.
Israel has dealt a series of blows to Hezbollah, notably the assassination of its veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday Israeli forces fired at several vehicles with suspects to prevent them from reaching a no-go zone in Lebanese territory and the suspects moved away.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the military to “act firmly and without compromise” should it happen again.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said that the militant Lebanese group would retain the right to defend itself if Israel attacked.
The ceasefire would give the Israeli army an opportunity to rest and replenish supplies, and isolate Hamas, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We have pushed them (Hezbollah) decades back. We eliminated Nasrallah, the axis of the axis. We have taken out the organization’s top leadership, we have destroyed most of their rockets and missiles,” he said.


‘Shaking with cold’: tourists from Egypt boat sinking brought ashore

Updated 27 November 2024
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‘Shaking with cold’: tourists from Egypt boat sinking brought ashore

  • Egypt released video footage Wednesday of the latest tourists rescued from a boat that capsized off the country’s Red Sea coast, where at least four people lost their lives

CAIRO: Egypt released video footage Wednesday of the latest tourists rescued from a boat that capsized off the country’s Red Sea coast, where at least four people lost their lives.
Seven people remain missing more than two days after the “Sea Story” was struck by a wave and overturned in the middle of the night.
The vessel had set off Sunday from Port Ghalib, near Marsa Alam in the southeast, on a multi-day diving trip with 31 tourists — mostly Europeans, along with Chinese and US nationals — and a 13-member crew.
Thirty-three were rescued, including tourists seen in the video stepping off a speedboat, draped in blankets, at a marina near Marsa Alam.
“We were shaking with cold,” one unidentified man said in the footage.
The tourists who appeared in the video had spent at least 24 hours inside a cabin of the overturned vessel before rescuers found them Tuesday morning, according to a government source close to the rescue operations.

A military-led team on Tuesday rescued two Belgians, one Swiss national, one Finnish tourist and one Egyptian, authorities said.
Two survivors — one identified by authorities on camera as an Egyptian — were rolled out on stretchers, one of them conscious and speaking.
A Belgian tourist sobbed when she was greeted by an Egyptian general.
Red Sea governor Amr Hanafi said the boat capsized “suddenly and quickly within five-seven minutes” after being struck by a strong wave in the middle of the night, leaving some passengers unable to escape their cabins.
The Sea Story had been due to dock on Friday at the tourist resort of Hurghada, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Marsa Alam.
Authorities in Egypt have said the vessel was fully licensed and had passed all inspection checks. A preliminary investigation showed no technical fault.
There were at least two similar boat accidents in the Marsa Alam area earlier this year. There were no fatalities.
The Red Sea coast is a major tourist destination in Egypt.
Dozens of dive boats crisscross between Red Sea coral reefs and islands off Egypt’s eastern coast every day, where safety regulations are robust but unevenly enforced.